^  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


A   PLAIN   ARGUMENT 
FOR   GOD 


BY 


GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON 

PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY   IN    THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

4LIFOR 


PHILADELPHIA 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 
1889 


/.  It 

F  f 


GENERAL 


Copyright,  1889,  by  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY. 


TO   THE   MEMORY 

OF 

NIY    DEAR    FRIEND 

BENJAMIN   BARTIS   COMEGYS,  JR., 

THIS   LITTLE  BOOK 
IS  AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED. 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  long  been  of  the  opinion  that 
the  argument  for  God,  as  it  is  usually  pre- 
sented, gives  but  little  satisfaction  to  the 
vast  mass  of  thoughtful  men  and  women 
who  approach  the  subject  with  an  earnest 
desire  to  satisfy  not  only  the  demands  of 
the  intellect  but  also  of  the  heart.  The 
language  used  is  so  far  removed  from  that 
of  common  life  as  to  be  not  readily  intelli- 
gible. Some  of  the  arguments  put  forward 
seem  to  the  plain  man  little  better  than 
metaphysical  quibbles,  and  if  he  assents  to 
them  it  is  rather  because  he  already  agrees . 
with  their  conclusion  than  because  he  sees 
their  force.  The  one  argument  which  does 
appeal  to  him  as  simple  and  natural  is  pre- 
sented in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  him  to  a 
God,  not  present  and  living,  but  of  the 
past. 


6  Preface. 

This,  however,  is  not  at  all  what  he  has 
meant  by  the  word  God.  To  him  the  word 
has  signified  a  Being  in  a  close  personal 
relation  to  him,  a  Father  of  Spirits,  "  who 
is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us."  The 
reasoning  does  not  assure  him  of  the  ex- 
istence of  the  God  in  whom  he  has  been 
accustomed  to  believe,  and  he  has  a  tortur- 
ing sense  that  either  he  has  not  grasped 
the  arguments  or  the  foundations  of  his 
belief  will  not  bear  too  much  investigation. 

Now  it  is  with  a  conviction  that  the 
argument  for  God's  existence  can  be  stated 
simply  and  plainly,  and  in  a  way  to  appeal 
to  a  thoughtful  mind  unaccustomed  to 
following  the  reasonings  of  the  schools, 
that  this  little  book  has  been  written.  It 
has  grown  out  of  three  lectures  on  the  sub- 
ject delivered  before  the  Churchwoman's 
Institute  in  Philadelphia  in  the  spring  of 
1888.  The  lectures,  which  many  seemed 
to  find  helpful,  were  delivered  to  an  intelli- 
gent but  a  popular  audience;  and  in  pre- 
paring my  thoughts  upon  the  subject  for 


Preface.  j 

publication  I  have  had  such  an  audience  in 
view.  My  endeavor  throughout  has  been 
to  make  my  thought  clear  to  all  persons  of 
fair  intelligence  who  read  with  any  degree 
of  attention  and  reflection. 

As,  however,  I  have  to  some  degree  left 
the  beaten  track  in  the  endeavor  to  employ 
plain  and  simple  language,  where  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  use  what  may  be  called  technical 
terms,  I  have  laid  myself  open  to  mis- 
understanding on  the  part  of  those  who 
rest  rather  in  words  than  in  the  thought 
they  represent.  In  the  interests  of  clear- 
ness and  directness  this  was  unavoidable. 
I  ask,  therefore,  that  my  readers  try  to  get 
a  clear  view  of  my  thought  itself  before 
passing  judgment  on  the  argument  that 
follows. 

GEORGE  STUART  FULLERTON. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA, 
January,  1889. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Common  Argument      .        .         .11 

II.  The  Search  for  Mind  .         .         .         .    23 

III.  God  in  Nature 44 

IV.  The  Witness  of  Literature  .  .     62 
V.  Theism  or  Pantheism,  .         .         .        •    75 

VI.     The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature    .        .    86 
VII.     The  Eternity  of  Matter  and  the  Doc- 
trine of  Evolution    .        .        .        .    99 
VIII.    Conclusion 107 


A 

PLAIN  ARGUMENT  FOR  GOD. 

CHAPTER   I. 
The  Common  Argument. 

IF  we  take  up  what  seems  the  simplest 
and  most  natural  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  as  we  find  it  presented  in 
most  books  on  the  subject,  we  will  see  that 
it  argues  about  as  follows : 

Things  are  constantly  happening  in  the 
-world  about  us.  As  I  look  from  my  win- 
dow at  the  autumn  landscape,  the  withered 
leaves  on  the  trees  are  now  moving  and 
now  at  rest.  In  a  moment  the  motion  be- 
comes more  noticeable,  and  two  or  three 
loose  their  hold  upon  the  twigs  and  fall  to 
the  ground.  Now  they  are  followed  by 


12          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

many  more,  and  those  that  have  fallen  flut- 
ter here  and  there,  collecting  in,  sheltered 
corners  or  whirling  about  each  other  in 
little  eddies.  Why  has  this  happened  ? 
From  my  window  I  have  seen  only  the 
landscape  and  the  leaves :  the  motion 
seems  to  have  begun  and  ended  without 
any  reason  at  all. 

But,  if  I  ask  even  a  child  why  the  leaves 
moved,  he  answers  at  once,  "  Because  the 
wind  blew."  If  I  ask  him  whether  they 
could  move  if  the  wind  did  not  blow,  he 
answers  without  hesitation,  "  No."  As  to 
this  particular  event,  the  motion  of  the 
dead  leaves,  his  mind  is  quite  made  up, — 
it  could  not  have  ta,ken  place  without  some 
cause.  Very  likely  with  this  answer  he 
stops  thinking  about  the  matter,  but  his 
answer  has  made  me  reflect.  If  the  wind 
is  the  cause  of  the  motion  of  the  leaves, 
what  is  the  cause  of  the  wind  ?  Could 
the  wind  begin  to  blow  without  any  reason 
any  more  than  the  leaves  could  move  with- 
out any  reason  ?  And  if  there  must  be 


The  Common  Argument.  ij 

some  cause  why  the  wind  began  to  blow, 
what  was  the  cause  of  that  cause  ?  and  the 
cause  of  that  one  ?  and  of  that  one  ?  And 
if  everything  that  happens  must  have  some 
cause,  must  we  not,  to  explain  just  why 
the  leaves  moved  as  I  looked  at  them,  go 
back  and  back  either  without  end,  or  until 
we  find  some  cause  which  differs  from 
other  things  in  being  the  very  first,  and  in 
not  needing  a  cause  at  all  ? 

Now,  if  we  go  to  men  of  science,  we 
find  that  they  always  assume  that  anything 
that  happens  must  have  some  cause,  even  if 
they  do  not  know  what  that  cause  is.  In 
their  examination  into  the  secrets  of  nature 
they  are  always  looking  for  causes  of  what 
they  see,  and  until  they  find  them  they  do 
not  pretend  to  understand  what  they  see. 
And  they  are  not  satisfied  with  tracing  out 
the  causes  of  things  for  a  little  way  and 
then  stopping,  but  they  always  hold  that 
the  last  cause  which  they  have  found  has 
its  cause  too,  and  that  the  search  for  causes 
should  never  be  given  up. 


/^  A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

Some  men,  indeed,  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  this  chain  of  causes  is  really  endless, 
and  that  there  can  be  no  first  cause,  for 
that,  like  the  motion  of  the  leaves,  would 
have  to  be  explained  by  some  cause  be- 
fore it. 

Now  the  argument,  which  I  am  discuss- 
ing, for  the  existence  of  God  accepts  all 
that  is  said  about  the  necessity  that  what- 
ever happens  should  have  its  cause,  and 
that  cause  its  cause,  and  so  on ;  but  it 
insists  that  this  chain  of  causes  cannot  be 
really  endless,-  but  must  end  in  a  First 
Cause,  which  is  God ;  and  this  it  does  on 
the  ground  that  unless  we  assume  a  First 
Cause,  we  have  really  no  cause  at  all,  but 
only  a  series  of  effects  or  results,  all  of 
which  are  uncaused. 

Having  arrived  at  this  point  the  argu- 
ment in  question  goes  on  to  say  that 
everything  that  happens  must  have  some 
sufficient  cause.  We  know  that  if  we 
wish  to  produce  anything  we  must  go 
about  it  in  the  right  way,  and,  if  we  see 


The  Common  Argument.  15 

anything  happen,  we  do  not  simply  assume 
any  cause  at  all,  but  some  cause  that  we 
think  would  naturally  produce  such  a  re- 
sult. When  the  leaves  moved,  I  explained 
it  by  the  blowing  of  the  wind,  because  I 
knew  that  the  blowing  of  the  wind  is  a 
cause  which  would  naturally  make  the 
leaves  move.  And  if  I  see  a  house  in  pro- 
cess of  building,  I  never  suppose  that  the 
blowing  of  the  wind  is  building  the  house, 
because,  from  all  I  know  of  the  wind  and 
the  house,  it  seems  to  me  absurd  to  sup- 
pose that  the  former  could  produce  the 
latter.  What  shocks  the  mind  of  a  grown 
person  in  reading  such  tales  as  the  "  Ara- 
bian Nights"  is  simply  the  disregard  of 
this  truth,  that  causes  and  effects  should 
be  properly  proportioned  to  each  other. 
How  the  rubbing  of  a  lamp  should  com- 
pel a  spirit  to  obey  us  we  cannot  see,  nor 
how  a  few  words  pronounced  by  way  of  a 
charm  should  change  a  human  being  into 
a  dog  or  an  ape  into  a  human  being. 
When  we  say  all  this  is  improbable,  we 


1 6          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

mean  that  the  causes  given  do  not  natu- 
rally produce  the  effects  ascribed  to  them, 
and  the  sense  of  unreality  this  brings  into 
our  minds  spoils  our  pleasure  in  the  read- 
ing. It  is  only  the  child,  who  has  no  clear 
notion  of  what  is  natural,  and  who  cannot 
therefore  have  any  clear  notion  of  what  is 
unnatural,  that  is  not  repelled  by  such 
improbabilities. 

It  is  for  this  reason — that  causes  must 
be  proportioned  to  effects — that  I  always 
assume  a  builder  to  explain  the  building  of 
the  house ;  and  if  the  plan  of  the  house  is 
particularly  original  and  ingenious,  I  natu- 
rally infer  that  this  is  due  to  unusual  abil- 
ity and  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  its  author. 
Every  one  reasons  in  this  way  about  com- 
mon things ;  and,  to  use  a  famous  old 
illustration,  no  one,  finding  a  watch  in  a 
desert  place,  would  suppose  that  it  had 
any  other  cause  than  the  mind  and  hands 
of  some  watchmaker, — the  only  thing  we 
know  capable  of  making  a  watch.  If 
everything  that  happens  must  have  a  suf- 


The  Common  Argument.  // 

ficient  cause,  we  say,  then  the  cause  as- 
sumed, when  the  thing  in  question  shows 
plan,  must  be  a  reasonable  one,  a  mind,  as 
the  only  thing  capable  of  planning.  Other- 
wise, you  fall  into  the  absurdities  of  the 
"Arabian  Nights;"  for  is  it  more  absurd 
to  assume  that  a  brazen  horse  can  rise  into 
the  air  through  a  man's  mounting  it,  than 
to  assume  that  a  thing  that  shows  plan  can 
be  brought  about  by  a  creature  incapable 
of  planning? 

If,  now,  we  look  at  the  world  about  us, 
do  we  not  find  on  every  side  evidences  6T 
adaptation  and  apparent  purpose?  Are 
not  means  fitted  to  ends  through  the  whole 
domain  of  nature?  and  can  we  open  our 
eyes  without  having  forced  on  our  atten- 
tion mechanisms  of  the  most  marvellous 
intricacy  and  complexity  ?  Which  is  the 
more  remarkable  in  its  structure  and  work- 
ings, a  watch  or  a  human  body  ?  And  if 
we  find  that  a  human  body  is  not,  con- 
sidered in  itself  alone,  a  complete  thing  at 
all,  but  like  a  watch  without  its  key,  quite 


1 8          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

useless,  unless  we  suppose  it  in  relation  to 
the  other  things  in  nature, — food,  water/ air, 
all  of  which  it  needs  in  order  to  subsist 
and  be  serviceable;  and  if  we  then  pass  on 
to  the  reflection  that  everything  in  nature 
is  in  this  way  related  to  the  whole  of 
nature,  as  a  part  of  it,  so  that  we  must 
look  upon  nature  as  a  unit,  a  harmonious 
whole,  full  of  meaning  and  plan  and  pur- 
pose ; — if  we  do  this,  and  then  go  back  to 
the  cause  of  all  this,  must  we  not  infer 
that  there  is  but  one  First  Cause,  wise  as 
well  as  powerful,  who  is  the  Author  of  this 
harmonious  plan,  and  the  source  of  all  its 
workings  ? 

But  there  is  one  further  step  in  the 
argument.  Suppose  that  in  looking  about 
in  the  world  we  find,  not  only  that  things 
seem  very  wisely  adapted  to  attain  their 
ends,  but  that  they  seem  on  the  whole  to 
work  together  for  good :  that  the  ends  for 
which  nature  seems  to  strive  appear  to  be 
good  ends.  And  suppose  that  from  such 
an  observation  of  nature  we  turn  away 


The  Common  Argument.  19 

with  the  conviction  that  the  system  of 
things  as  a  whole  is  good,  and  contains  a 
certain  moral  order  or  plan.  Now,  if  it  is 
reasonable  to  argue  that,  when  the  things 
we  see  indicate  a  plan,  we  may  infer  as 
their  cause  a  Mind,  is  it  not  reasonable  to 
argue  further  that,  when  the  things  we  see 
indicate  not  only  a  plan  but  a  good  plan, 
— I  mean  morally  good, — we  may  infer  as 
their  author  a  Good  Mind?  That  is  to 
say,  may  we  not  infer  such  a  Being  as  we 
mean  when  we  use  the  word  God  ? 

With  this  ends  the  famous  "  Argument 
from  Design,"  as  it  is  called,  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God. 

You  will  notice  that  the  argument  thus 
stated  has  two  main  divisions.  The  one 
argues  from  what  happens  to  a  First  Cause, 
without  inquiring  as  to  the  character  of 
that  cause.  The  other  passes  from  the 
nature  of  what  is  to  be  explained,  the 
world,  to  the  nature  of  the  First  Cause  as 
intelligent  and  good,  and  so  comes  to  a 
God.  The  argument  is  an  old  one,  and 


2o          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

has  had  the  assent  of  many  great  minds. 
It  should  be  carefully  weighed  by  every 
one.. 

Nevertheless,  I  should  like  any  fair- 
minded  man,  who  has  already  been  a  be- 
liever in  God,  and  has  felt  His  presence 
in  the  world,  to  ask  himself  whether  this 
reasoning  just  satisfies  the  demands  of  his 
religious  nature.  Has  it  made  God  any 
more  real  to  him,  to  have  followed  the 
argument?  Quite  apart  from  the  fact  that 
an  important  part  of  the  argument,  the 
inference  to  a.  First  Cause  on  the  ground 
that  the  series  of  causes  cannot  be  con- 
ceived as  endless,  is  not  unhesitatingly  ad- 
mitted by  every  one, — quite  apart  from  this 
fact,  and  supposing  the  argument  faultless 
in  every  particular,  does  it  not  still  set  God 
at  the  end  of  a  vista  which  puts  Him  out 
of  the  present  religious  experience  of  the 
man  who  is  seeking  Him  ?  Suppose  some 
one  to  whom  he  should  present  this  argu- 
ment were  to  say,  "  I  admit  all  that.  I 
believe  God  created  the  world  and  set 


The  Common  Argument.  21 

nature  in  motion,  but  I  believe  that  there 
His  contact  with  the  world  ceased.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  He  is  now  in  personal 
relation  with  me.  His  action  is  of  the 
past,  and  not  of  the  present."  How  could 
our  argument  for  God  answer  this?  If 
our  champion  should  try  to  answer  it  by 
pointing  to  God's  goodness  as  seen  in  the 
world  to-day,  would  not  his  opponent  at 
once  suggest  that,  according  to  his  own 
arguments,  to  prove  God  the  author  of 
this  goodness  he  must  go  back  to  a  First 
Cause,  and  infer  that  this  First  Cause  is 
good  ?  And  would  not  this  be  in  fact  ad- 
mitting that  the  only  provable  cause  of 
anything  is  a  God  acting  in  the  past?  and 
a  very  distant  past  at  that? 

There  have  been  men  who  have  argued 
in  just  the  spirit  of  this  objection  concern- 
ing God  and  His  relation  to  the  world. 
Their  reasonings  have  not  been  regarded 
as  satisfactory  to  the  religious  nature  of 
man,  nor  have  their  results  been  widely 
accepted.  The  teaching  of  the  Church, 


22          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

taking  that  word  in  the  broadest  sense 
possible,  has  always  been  Theistic,  while 
this  view  of  things  is  Deistic.  I  had  not 
intended  to  use  in  this  discussion  any  of 
those  words  which  belong  more  properly 
to  the  schools  than  to  the  language  of 
common  .life,  but  it  is  convenient  to  use 
these  two,  as  they  mark  an  important  dis- 
tinction, and  one  which  we  will  do  well  to 
keep  in  mind.  I  shall  try  to  make  their 
meaning  quite  plain.  Both  words  have 
the  same  derivation  from  the  word  God, 
but  one  is  from  the  Greek  word  and  one 
from  the  Latin.  Both  words  are  used  in 
somewhat  varying  senses,  but  one  sense  in 
which  they  have  been  used,  and  the  sense 
in  which  I  shall  use  them,  distinguishes 
between  them  in  this  way.  Both  the 
Deist  and  the  Theist  are  believers  in  a 
God  in  some  sense  of  the  term,  but  the 
Deist  believes  in  a  God  only  as  First 
Cause,  as  source  of  things,  while  the 
Theist  believes  in  a  God  as  also  preserver 
and  governor  of  things, — a  God  now  re- 


The  Common  Argument.  23 

vealed  in  nature  and  now  and  always  in 
personal  relation  to  man.  Of  course  it  fol- 
lows, that  it  is  only  upon  the  latter  view, 
the  Theistic,  that  religion,  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  term,  is  possible.  There  can 
be  no  communion  with  God,  if  God  is  in 
no  present  relation  with  the  world  in 
which  one  lives. 

Now,  if  you  have  followed  with  care  the 
argument  for  God  with  which  this  chapter 
has  been  taken  up,  you  must  see  that, 
standing  as  it  does,  it  proves  what  the 
Deist  holds,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  go  on 
to  prove  what  the  Theist  wishes  to  believe. 
I  hope  you  will  not  for  a  moment  under- 
stand me  to  say  that  the  writers  who  have 
brought  it  forward,  and  who  still  bring  it 
forward,  are  not  Theists,  and  perhaps  very 
earnest  Theists.  But  I  am  quite  willing  to 
say,  and  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  in 
saying,  that  they  are  Theists,  not  because 
of  their  argument,  but  in  spite  of  it. 
They  are  Theists,  I  suppose,  because  the 
world  in  which  we  live  is  always  offering 


24.          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

to  one  whose  eyes,  like  the  wise  man's, 
are  in  his  head,  a  much  more  natural  and 
simple  argument  for  God,  and  one  which 
does  not  go  back  for  a  sight  of  God  to  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  the  beginnings 
of  time.  Of  this  argument  I  will  speak  in 
the  following  chapters. 


CHAPTER    II. 

The  Search  for  Mind. 

BEFORE  asking  ourselves  whether  we 
can  find  God  in  nature,  and,  if  so,  how, 
it  would  be  well  to  have  a  clear  idea  of 
what  we  are  looking  for  when  we  seek 
Him  there.  If  we  do  not,  must  not  our 
search  be  a  random  one  ?  and  may  it  not 
possibly  turn  out  to  be  conducted  on  a 
quite  false  and  fruitless  method?  If  by 
the  word  God  I  do  not  mean  a  thing  that 
can  be  seen  with  the  eyes  or  touched 
with  the  fingers, — a  material  thing, — and 
if  nevertheless  I  look  through  nature  for 
God  with  the  methods  of  physical  science, 
which  are  adapted  to  finding  material 
things,  must  not  my  search,  however  thor- 
ough, be  necessarily  fruitless  ?  And  if, 
after  searching  for  God  in  this  way,  I  fail 
to  find  Him,  does  that  give  me  the  right  to 
say  that  I  am  now  certain  He  does  not 

3 


26          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

exist?  Until  I  have  some  notion  of  what 
it  is  that  I  mean  by  the  word  God,  I  am  in 
no  position  to  prove  either  that  He  exists 
or  that  He  does  not,  for  I  have  no  idea  in 
what  direction  to  turn  for  my  proofs. 

Now,  without  going  into  disputed  points, 
but  confining  ourselves  to  what  all  reason- 
able men  will  admit,  we  may  safely  say 
thus  much:  by  the  word  God  we  at  least 
signify  a  Mind,  a  Person ;  and  the  ques- 
tion whether  God  can  be  found  in  nature 
is  at  bottom  the  question  whether  mind  is 
revealed  in  nature, — a  mind  which  is  yet 
not  your  mind  or  mine,  but  something 
much  greater  and  more  comprehensive; 
but,  still,  always  a  mind.  If,  then,  the 
search  for  God  is  a  search  for  mind,  we 
must  conduct  it  as  we  usually  conduct  the 
search  for  minds,  and  in  no  other  way.  It 
is  with  the  question  of  how  we  commonly 
conduct  this  search  for  minds,  and  what 
we  mean  when  we  say  we  have  found  one, 
that  this  chapter  is  concerned. 

It  is  now  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the 


The  Search  for  Mind.  2j 

minds  with  which  infants  appear  upon  this 
mortal  stage  have  been  much  overrated, 
not  merely  by  their  mothers,  as  is  perhaps 
natural,  but  by  the  world  at  large.  The 
little  creature  which  blinks  and  stares  with 
its  face  towards  the  light  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  see  objects  much  as  we  do ;  and 
when  it  jerks  about  in  its  aimless  way  its 
small  arms  and  legs,  it  is  supposed  to  have 
a  fair  knowledge  of  what  they  are  and  of 
the  fact  that  they  belong  to  it.  When  it 
starts  at  hearing  a  sound,  we  are  apt  to 
imagine  that  the  sensation  has  to  it  some- 
what the  same  significance  that  it  has  to 
us,  who  have  heard  sounds  and  connected 
them  with  objects  around  us  for  many 
years.  This  reputation  for  intelligence 
would  seem  to  have  been  gained  some- 
what as  the  stupid  man  gained  his  repu- 
tation for  profound  wisdom,  by  a  policy  of 
strict  silence.  The  students  of  mind  in 
children  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  it 
is  about  as  well  founded  as  that,  and  that 
the  mental  furniture  of  a  very  young  in- 


28          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

fant  is  scanty  to  a  degree  which  we  have 
not  heretofore  suspected.  They  are  begin- 
ning, too,  to  give  us  some  account  of  the 
growth  of  what,  starting  in  such  poverty, 
may  end  in  the  wealth  of  knowledge  and 
wisdom  of  a  Newton  or  a  Kant. 

It  will  not  take  a  great  deal  of  reflection 
to  show  any  one  that  their  statements  are 
reasonable,  and  that  a  mind  beginning  to 
feel  and  to  think  must  begin  in  a  very 
small  way.  I  will  take  an  illustration  and 
see  if  I  cannot  make  this  clear.  As  I 
write,  there  is  lying  on  my  desk  before  me 
an  apple.  I  say  this,  although  I  have  not 
touched  it,  or  smelt  it,  or  tasted  it.  I  have 
only  seen  it.  Moreover,  I  see  it  only  from 
the  one  side,  so  that  I  only  see  a  small 
part  of  what  I  could  see  if  I  were  to  turn 
it  over  and  around  and  look  at  every  part 
of  it.  And  when  I  call  it  an  apple,  I  have 
some  notion  that  if  I  were  to  cut  it  in  two 
I  should  see  white  instead  of  red,  with  a 
little  black  or  brown  in  the  centre  where  I 
believe  the  seeds  to  be.  Just  notice  how 


The  Search  for  Mind.  29 

much  more  is  in  my  mind  about  the  apple 
than  what  I  actually  see.  I  actually  see 
only  a  little  patch  of  red  color  of  a  certain 
shape,  and  I  supply  from  my  past  experi- 
ence of  apples  all  the  rest, — the  idea  that 
if  I  were  to  turn  it  round  I  could  see  the 
other  parts  of  it,  the  idea  of  the  white 
flesh,  the  idea  of  the  seeds.  Is  it  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  I  could  have  supplied 
all  this  if  I  had  not  had  any  past  experi- 
ence of  apples  ?  And  when  we  go  on  to 
the  touch  qualities  of  the  apple,  its  hard- 
ness and  smoothness,  its  weight,  and  all 
the  rest;  and  from  these  to  the  taste  and 
the  smell, — how  is  it  that  as  soon  as  I  see 
that  little  patch  of  red  color  on  the  table 
in  front  of  me  I  think  of  all  these,  and 
connect  them  with  the  apple  ?  Hardness 
is  not  anything  like  color,  nor  is  weight, 
nor  is  taste,  nor  any  of  the  rest.  I  certainly 
do  not  see  them.  Why  do  I  believe  them 
there?  Is  it  not  because,  although  these 
qualities  are  all  unlike  each  other,  yet  I 
have  always  found  in  my  past  experience 


jo          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

that  they  are  grouped  in  nature,  and  that 
when  I  can  see  the  color  I  can  if  I  choose 
feel  the  hardness  or  weight,  or  smell  or 
taste  the  apple  ?  If  all  my  life  I  had  only 
seen  objects  and  never  touched  them, 
would  I  have  any  reason  to  believe  that 
in  addition  to  the  sensation  of  color  I  now 
experience  I  could  also  have  experiences 
of  touch  and  taste  and  smell  ?  And  if  the 
idea  of  an  apple  is  made  up  of  all  these 
experiences  together,  could  I,  in  the  case 
I  have  supposed,  get  any  true  idea  of  an 
apple  at  all  by  just  seeing  one  before 
me? 

Now  suppose  an  infant  in  its  nurse's 
arms  brought  close  up  to  my  desk,  and 
placed  in  front  of  the  apple  so  that  it  can- 
not help  seeing  its  color.  Suppose  that  it 
is  still  so  young  that  it  has  not  had  much 
experience  of  the  fact  that  when  certain 
sensations  of  color  enter  its  small  mind, 
certain  sensations  of  touch  can  be  made  to 
enter  too, — that  is,  that  things  seen  can 
also  be  touched.  Will  not  in  such  a  case 


The  Search  for  Mind.  ji 

the  sensation  of  color  stand  quite  by  itself 
and  disconnected  from  any  thought  of  any 
further  experience  ?  And  if  the  child  is  to 
have  any  notion  of  an  apple  as  we  know 
apples,  with  all  their  different  qualities, 
must  not  this  knowledge  grow  up  grad- 
ually, from  an  experience  in  which  one 
sensation  accompanies  another  again  and 
again  until  the  mind  learns  to  connect 
them,  and  learns  to  expect  to  find  them 
always  together?  This  reasoning  is  ap- 
plied also  to  the  child's  knowledge  of  its 
own  body,  and  it  is  held  that  it  is  un- 
reasonable to  suppose  that  an  infant  knows 
that  the  little  white  object  that  it  sees  in 
front  of  its  face  when  it  waves  its  hand 
about,  is  its  hand, — that  is,  a  thing  that  can 
be  touched  as  well  as  seen,  and  can  touch 
as  well  as  be  touched.  As  soon  as  we  see 
a  hand  we  of  course  think  of  all  this,  but 
we  do  this  because  we  have  had  a  long  ex- 
perience of  hands,  and  this  experience  the 
infant  has  not  had. 

From   all  this   it   is   evident  that  when 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 


32          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

sensations  first  come  to  the  mind  of  an 
infant  they  do  not  mean  much.  It  does 
not  know  what  they  signify.  And  it  is 
evident,  too,  that  the  growth  of  its  mind 
means  not  only  the  having  of  more  and 
more  sensations,  but  also  a  discovery  of 
their  meaning, — that  is,  a  discovery  of  the 
fact  that  they  are  connected  in  certain 
fixed  ways  which  will  allow  the  mind 
to  make  inferences  from  sensations  now 
present  to  sensations  which  are  not  now 
present.  A  burnt  child,  it  is  said,  dreads 
the  fire,  and  this  simply  means  that  a  child 
which  has  once  seen  the  fire  and  felt  it 
knows  when  it  sees  it  another  time,  and 
without  having  to  feel  it  again,  that  this 
particular  sensation  of  color  and  form  may 
be  followed  by  a  sensation  of  quite  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  which  it  is  particularly  anxious 
not  to  have.  The  sensation,  you  see,  has 
gained  a  meaning,  because  it  has  become 
connected  with  another  sensation.  It  is 
now  known  that  the  fire  which  is  seen  can 
burn.  So  it  is  that  the  child  connects  feel- 


The  Search  for  Mind.  jj 

ing  with  feeling,  until  what  was  at  first  a 
mere  string  of  disconnected  and  unmean- 
ing sensations  grows  into  an  orderly  and 
meaning-full  world  of  things. 

Suppose  further  that  the  child  has  by 
this  time  gained  some  acquaintance  with 
its  own  body  and  with  the  things  about  it. 
It  knows  its  own  hand  now  when  it  sees 
it :  it  knows  that  this  is  a  thing  that  can 
be  touched  as  well  as  seen,  and  that  can 
touch  other  things  which  can  be  seen. 
Now  it  discovers  that  the  hand  is  a  thing 
of  a  different  kind  from  the  apple.  Both 
can  be  seen  and  touched,  but  when  the 
apple  is  touched  by  anything  the  result  is 
not  just  the  same  as  when  the  hand  is. 
One  may  cut  into  the  apple  or  crush  the 
apple,  and  it  makes  little  difference,  but  if 
one  cut  into  the  hand  or  crush  the  hand  it 
matters  very  much.  The  one  object  is  by 
no  means  so  important  to  the  child's  mind, 
nor  so  closely  connected  with  its  mind,  as 
is  the  other.  When  the  apple  is  cut  there 
is  no  pain,  and  when  the  hand  is  cut  there 


34          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

is  pain.  When  the  apple  is  seen  to  roll 
against  some  other  object  and  touch  it,  the 
child  only  sees  it, — that  is,  it  has  only  a 
sensation  of  sight;  but  when  its  hand  is 
seen  to  touch  another  object,  the  child  not 
only  sees  it  but  feels  it;  it  has  an  added 
sensation  of  touch.  By  remembering  such 
experiences  and  comparing  them  the  child 
gradually  learns  that  this  particular  object, 
its  own  body,  is  an  object  with  which  are 
somehow  connected  pleasure  and  pain,  and 
even  the  possibility  of  knowing  about 
other  objects  and.of  acting  upon  them  by 
its  will,  as  all  these  things  are  not  con- 
nected with  other  objects.  Though  it  is 
quite  unable  to  put  the  information  into 
words,  it  is  finding  out  that  its  body  is  an 
object  with  which  is  somehow  connected  a 
mind. 

But  in  the  world  about  the  child  are 
a  number  of  objects  which  are  more  or 
less  like  its  own  body.  Its  nurse  and  its 
mother  have  bodies  like  its  own,  and  these 
it  can  see  as  it  sees  its  own.  As  it  comes 


The  Search  for  Mind.  jj 

to  know  more  and  more  about  things,  it 
learns  to  distinguish  these  from  the  other 
things  about  it  and  to  class  them  as  things 
of  a  kind  with  its  own  body.  And  as  it 
finds  in  its  own  experience  that  certain 
states  of  mind,  say  pains  or  pleasures,,  are 
always  present  when  its  body  goes  through 
certain  motions  or  is  affected  in  certain 
ways,  and  learns  to  connect  these  states  of 
mind  with  these  bodily  actions  or  condi- 
tions ;  so,  when  it  sees  the  same  actions  or 
conditions  in  the  bodies  of  its  nurse  and 
mother,  it  at  once  calls  up  in  memory 
these  states  of  mind  and  connects  them 
in  thought  with  these  other  bodies  too. 
The  child  first  observes,  you  see,  that 
when  its  own  body  is  injured  there  is  a 
feeling  of  pain,  and  then  goes  on  to  the 
belief  that  when  certain  other  bodies  which 
are  like  its  own  are  similarly  injured,  here, 
too,  the  injury  is  not  like  an  injury  done 
to  a  chair  or  table,  but  results  in  pain, — 
that  is,  it  affects  a  mind.  Not  that  the 
child  sees  or  feels  the  pain  itself,  or  can 


j<5          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

by  any  possibility  be  made  to  see  or  feel 
directly  this  other  mind ;  'but  it  interprets 
what  it  does  see,  and  the  most  natural  in- 
terpretation of  what  it  sees  is,  that  there 
is  revealed  by  these  other  bodies  a  some- 
thing like  what  it  experiences  in  connection 
with  its  own  body,  a  mind  with  its  sen- 
sations. 

Keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  all  that  the 
child  can  know  of  these  other  minds  is 
what  it  can  read  into  them  by  interpreting 
the  motions  of  their  bodies, — their  gest- 
ures, their  facial,  expressions,  their  words. 
It  can  never  directly  perceive  any  mind 
but  its  own.  It  must  guess  the  mind  from 
the  body.  Perhaps  another  illustration 
will  serve  to  make  this  more  clear. 

Suppose  a  child  to  see  for  the  first  time 
a  smile  upon  its  mother's  face.  Now  a 
smile  is  surely  not  anything  like  the  feel- 
ing of  love  that  prompts  a  smile.  No  one 
can  see  a  feeling  of  love,  and  one  can  see 
a  smile.  The  one  is  in  the  mother's  mind, 
and  the  other  is  on  the  mother's  face. 


The  Search  for  Mind.  37 

How  is  the  child  to  know  what  the  smile 
that  it  sees  means  ?  How  can  it  tell  that 
this  expression  indicates  a  thing  so  unlike 
itself,  and  a  thing  which  must  always  re- 
main unseen  ?  Is  there  any  other  way  for 
it  to  discover  the  meaning  of  the  smile 
than  to  notice  some  time  when  it  is  smiling 
itself  what  feeling  prompts  a  smile,  and 
then,  having  learned  from  its  own  body 
the  meaning  of  this  new  action,  to  inter- 
pret the  smile  by  this  same  feeling  when 
it  sees  it  in  another  body  ?  But  if  a  child 
could  grow  up  without  ever  having  had 
in.  any  degree  at  all  the  feeling  of  love, 
could  it  ever  form  any  idea  at  all  of  the 
meaning  of  expressions  of  love  on  the 
part  of  those  about  it  ?  It  would  still  see 
the  bodily  actions,  and  the  expressions  of 
the  face,  and  hear  the  words,  but  would 
not  the  whole  language  of  affection  be  as 
totally  beyond  it  as  is  a  message  in  cipher 
to  a  man  who  has  lost  the  key  ?  Remem- 
ber, the  feeling  itself  in  the  mind  of  an- 
other we  can  never  see  as  we  see  the 


38          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

face  of  another.  We  must  call  it  up  in 
memory  to  connect  it  with  this  or  that 
other  body;  and  how  can  we  call  up  in 
memory  what  we  have  never  felt?  It  is 
quite  impossible  to  explain  to  a  man  who 
has  always  been  blind  what  a  color  is,  and 
this  is  because,  although  he  can  hear  our 
explanations  very  well,  there  is  in  his  ex- 
perience nothing  that  he  can  call  up  in 
response  to  the  words,  which  would  truly 
correspond  to  what  is  in  our  minds  when 
we  speak  them.  To  get  at  our  thought, 
since  he  cannot  see  it  directly,  he  must  in- 
terpret our  words  in  thoughts  of  his  own; 
and  he  fails,  because  when  we  speak  of 
colors  he  cannot  call  up  in  his  memory 
any  sensations  of  color,  and  the  words 
remain  mere  words  to  him.  He  will  never 
find  out  what  is  in  our  minds  when  we 
utter  them. 

This  fact,  then,  is  sufficiently  clear :  that 
when  a  man  says  that  another  man's  mind 
is  revealed  to  him  by  his  words  and  ac- 
tions, he  can  only  mean  that  he  observes 


The  Search  for  Mind.  jp 

such  and  such  motions  in  the  other  man's 
body,  and,  having  learned  from  his  own 
body  what  thoughts  and  feelings  accom- 
pany what  bodily  actions,  he  interprets  in 
this  language  learned  from  himself  what 
he  sees,  and  thus  builds  up  for  himself  in 
his  imagination  a  picture  of  the  other 
man's  mind.  No  one  gets  nearer  to  an- 
other mind  than  this  his  own  picture  of 
it.  As  he  interprets  what  he  sees  'in  the 
other  body  well  or  ill,  his  knowledge  of 
the  other  mind  will  be  true  and  com- 
plete, or  false  and  incomplete.  If  he  does 
the  work  very  well  he  will  have  a  good 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  other  mind ; 
but,  however  accurate,  it  is  always  his 
own  picture  of  it  that  he  has,  and  nothing 
else. 

Now  it  is  not  only  to  the  knowledge  of 
other  men's  minds  that  we  come  in  this 
way,  but  to  the  knowledge  of  all  minds 
whatever.  Indeed,  it  is  to  just  this  experi- 
ence that  we  refer  when  we  use  the  phrase 
"  another  mind"  at  all.  Why  do  I  believe 


4.0          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

that  a  dog  has  a  mind,  unless  because  I 
have  seen  in  his  actions  what  is  best  inter- 
preted by  my  own  experience  of  hope,  or 
fear,  or  anger,  or  love  ?  Why  do  I  speak 
of  one  horse  as  more  intelligent  than  an- 
other, unless  because  I  see  in  his  actions 
something  more  analogous  to  actions  of 
my  own  ?  Why  do  I  say  that  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  a  sponge  has  a  mind  at  all,  un- 
less because  I  see  in  it  so  little  that  is  like 
my  experience  of  my  own  body,  that  I 
find  almost  nothing  that  needs  interpreta- 
tion in  terms  of  thought  and  feeling  and 
will  ?  In  none  of  these  instances  do  I  see 
any  mind  at  all  directly  and  immediately. 
The  -nature  of  my  reasoning  is  precisely 
the  same  in  all  cases.  Where  I  find  traces 
of  what  I  have  learned  to  regard  as  indica- 
tions of  thought  or  feeling  or  will,  I  infer 
mind ;  and  I  try  to  build  up  for  myself  as 
good  an  idea  as  I  can  of  what  the  mind 
is  like.  Upon  the  indications  will  depend 
my  opinion  as  to  whether  the  mind  is  a 
wise  one  or  a  weak  one,  a  clear  one  or  a 


The  Search  for  Mind.  4.1 

dim  one.  For  me  these  bodily  indications, 
and  they  alone,  are  the  index  of  another 
mind.  Other  minds  can  be  reached  only 
through  these. 

I  spoke  a  little  while  ago  of  bodies  as 
"  revealing"  mind.  The  meaning  of  this 
word  is  now,  I  hope,  unmistakable.  Of 
course  it  cannot  mean  that  we  find  mind 
on  the  surfaces  of  bodies,  as  we  find 
colors;  nor  in  bodies,  as  the  seeds  are  in 
an  apple.  The  most  foolish  man  will 
hardly  expect  to  see  his  friend's  mind  as 
he  sees  his  friend's  wig.  Nor  do  we  mean 
that  the  minds  are  the  bodies,  for  then 
why  should  we  single  out  these  particu- 
lar bodies,  as  bodies  with  minds,  and  dis- 
tinguish them  from  bodies  without  minds  ? 
and  why  should  we  class  them  with  our 
own  bodies,  which  we  certainly  distinguish 
from  our  minds  ?  No  !  when  we  speak  of 
bodies  as  revealing  mind,  we  simply  mean 
that  we  observe  in  them  certain  signs  or 
marks  which  experience  of  our  bodies  has 
taught  us  to  recognize  as  signs  of  thought 


4.2          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

or  feeling  or  will,  and  that  we  can  build  up 
a  picture  of  these  minds  by  interpreting 
these  signs. 

As  it  happens,  we  have  been  building 
up  in  this  way  ideas  of  other  minds  all  our 
lives,  so  that  the  process  has  become  very 
rapid  and  easy, — so  rapid  and  so  easy  that 
we  never  think  of  the  steps  of  the  process 
at  all,  but,  like  the  practised  reader,  who 
is  absorbed  in  the  thought  of  his  book  and 
hardly  notices  the  letters,  pass  on  at  once 
from  the  signs  to  the  things  signified,  and 
seem  to  have  at  once  before  us  the  com- 
plete thought  of  another  mind.  Never- 
theless, rapid  or  slow,  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, this  is  the  process  we  actually  go 
through  with  every  time  we  find  another 
mind.  This  is  what  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  finding  a  mind;  and  it  will  easily 
be  seen  that  a  search  for  a  mind,  which 
starts  out  with  the  supposition  that  it  is  to 
be  sought  for  in  some  other  direction, — 
perhaps  as  an  object  immediately  perceived 
in  the  world  around  us, — is  very  likely  to 


The  Search  for  Mind.  4.3 

be  a  disappointing  search.  Quite  as  dis- 
appointing as  the  one  in  which  Swift's 
worthy  persevered  for  so  many  years, — 
the  search  for  a  method  of  extracting  sun- 
beams from  cucumbers. 


CHAPTER    III. 

God  in  Nature. 

I  HOPE  it  is  quite  clear  from  the  reason- 
ing of  the  last  chapter,  that  when  we  say 
we  have  found  a  mind  we  never  mean  that 
we  have  seen  one  directly  or  touched  one. 
And  I  hope  it  is  equally  clear  that  we  look 
for  minds  of  all  kinds  in  just  the  same 
way,  by  interpreting  the  signs  of  mind 
that  we  see  in  bodies,  and  thus  building  up 
some  idea  of  the  minds  revealed  by  those 
bodies.  In  the  last  chapter  I  referred,  in 
illustration  of  this  latter  point,  only  to 
cases  in  which  the  mind  inferred  is  inferior 
to  the  mind  of  man, — as  in  the  dog  or  the 
horse.  But  there  is  no  reason  at  all  why 
we  should  not  in  just  the  same  way  infer 
higher  minds  if  we  find  anywhere  in  our 
experience  the  marks  or  signs  which  can 
best  be  interpreted  as  revealing  higher 
minds.  When  a  child  stands  before  his 


God  in  Nature.  4.5 

father  and  listens  to  his  words,  he  cer- 
tainly gains  some  notion  that  his  father 
has  a  mind,  and  a  mind  superior  to  his 
own.  He  knows  very  well  that  he  can- 
not entirely  comprehend  that  mind,  nor 
know  all  that  there  is  to  be  known  about 
it,  but  he  knows  well  enough  that  the 
play  of  feature  that  he  sees,  and  the  words 
he  hears,  indicate  mind,  and  a  mind  higher 
and  broader  than  his  mind. 

Is  it  not  a  matter  of  every-day  experi- 
ence that  some  of  the  men  we  meet  im- 
press us  with  a  sense  of  our  own  mental 
inferiority  ?  Why  is  this,  except  that  we 
see  in  their  words  and  actions  what  will 
necessitate  a  recognition  of  higher  minds 
than  our  own?  All  men  may  be  born 
free,  but  they  are  certainly  not  born  equal 
in  mental  ability  any  more  than  in  physi- 
cal stature;  and  yet,  just  as  the  abler  man 
builds  up  for  himself  an  idea  of  the  inferior 
mind,  so  the  inferior  man  builds  up  for 
himself  an  idea  of  the  higher  mind,  and 
recognizes  that  it  is  above  him.  And  as  a 


4.6          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

man  of  less  ability  can  do  this  with  respect 
to  the  mind  of  a  Newton,  so  he  could  do 
it  with  respect  to  the  mind  of  some  being 
higher  than  man  if  he  found  anywhere 
indications  of  that  mind  as  he  finds  indica- 
tions of  mind  in  another  man's  body.  If  I 
were  to  meet  somewhere  a  being  differing 
as  much  from  man  in  the  one  direction  as 
do  the  horse  and  the  dog  in  the  other,  and 
if  a  careful  observation  of  the  actions  of  this 
being  were  to  show  me  that  these  actions 
are  analogous  with  those  by  which  my  own 
mental  states  are  expressed,  but  that  they 
are  more  complex  than  my  actions,  and 
differ  from  them  somewhat  as  my  actions 
differ  from  those  of  the  lower  animals, — if 
my  observation  were  to  show  me  all  this, 
would  not  I  naturally  and  at  once  assume 
that  this  being  possessed  a  mind  ?  Would 
not  I  think  of  this  mind  as  like  mine,  in  so 
far  as  it  was  a  mind,  but  different  from 
mine  in  being  higher  ?  Differences  in  the 
signs  to  be  interpreted  of  course  necessi- 
tate differences  in  the  interpretation. 


God  in  Nature.  4.7 

And  if,  after  I  had  met  the  being  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  I  should  meet  an- 
other being  whose  actions  put  him  still 
higher  in  the  scale,  should  I  not  set  to 
work  to  build  up  for  myself  an  idea  of  his 
mind,  reasoning  in  the  same  way,  and 
making  my  idea  of  his  mind  different  from 
my  idea  of  the  former  one,  according  to 
the  differences  that  I  find  in  the  actions  to 
be  interpreted?  There  is  only  one  limit 
that  can  be  set  to  this  way  of  reasoning, 
and  that  is  this :  The  ground  upon  which 
I  go  in  my  reasoning  always  is,  as  you 
have  seen,  that  I  have  found  in  my  own 
experience  of  my  body  that  certain  signs 
in  the  body  always  signify  certain  states  of 
mind,  and  when  I  see  such  signs  or  some- 
thing like  them  in  another  body,  I  infer 
such  states  of  mind  or  something  like 
them  in  another  mind.  Now,  as  the  signs 
which  I  see  in  another  body  differ  more 
and  more  from  the  signs  of  which  I  have 
learned  the  meaning  in  my  own,  I  infer 
that  the  mental  states  differ  correspond- 


48          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

ingly.  And  if  the  difference  should  go 
to  such  a  point  that  the  marks  seen  in 
another  body  should  not  resemble  at  all 
the  signs  that  I  have  come  to  look  upon 
as  a  revelation  of  mind,  then,  of  course,  I 
should  have  no  reason  at  all  to  infer  a 
mind  like  mine,  or  anything  like  it.  But 
up  to  this  limit  the  reasoning  holds  good ; 
wherever  I  see  signs  of  mind  I  may  infer 
mind,  and  my  belief  as  to  the  character  of 
the  mind  may  justly  rest  upon  the  nature 
of  the  signs. 

Now  to  apply  this  argument  to  God. 
From  the  earliest  times  thoughtful  men 
have  been  impressed  with  the  fact  that 
nature  reveals  a  Mind,  as  well  as  minds. 
When  we  look  about  us  we  discover  minds 
of  many  orders  in  men  and  the  lower  ani- 
mals, each  revealed  by  that  little  mass  of 
organized  matter  that  we  call  an  animal 
body.  But,  as  I  have  suggested  in  the 
first  chapter,  when  we  come  to  examine 
one  of  these  bodies  more  closely  we  find 
that  it  is  not  really  an  independent  thing  at 


God  in  Nature.  4.9 

all,  but  only  a  part  of  the  great  system  of 
nature,  and  bound  to  all  other  things  by 
natural  laws.  The  body  in  question  must 
depend  for  its  subsistence  upon  the  other 
things  around  it.  It  was  produced  from 
them,  and  after  it  is  dissolved  its  particles 
will  be  scattered  to  them  again.  Birth  and 
growth,  and  decay  and  death,  are  a  part  of 
the  general  plan  of  things  in  nature ;  and 
this  particular  body  belongs  to  that  plan 
and  must  obey  its  laws.  In  order  that  this 
body  might  live  and  move  at  this  present 
moment,  the  forces  of  nature  must  have 
been  active  before  its  birth,  and  these 
forces  must  themselves  have  depended 
upon  other  forces  obeying  natural  laws ; 
and  so  we  might  go  to  every  part  of  the 
great  world  of  things  and  find  that  had 
this  particular  body  been  different  even  in 
one  little  point,  perhaps  all  its  past  causes 
would  have  had  to  be  different,  and  all 
other  bodies  would  have  had  to  be  dif- 
ferent too.  The  very  words  "  a  system  of 
nature"  indicate  that  things  do  not  exist 

5 


jo          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

in  the  world  each  for  itself,  but  that  the 
universe  has  in  it  something  analogous  to 
a  human  body,  in  that  all  its  parts  have 
relation  to  all  its  other  parts,  and  gain 
their  significance  through  their  place  in 
the  system. 

While  I  reason  in  this  way  I  must  recog- 
nize that  my  own  body  is  a  part  of  this 
system,  and  that  my  own  mind  is  too.  If 
another  body  strikes  against  my  body  I 
feel  a  pain  in  my  mind,  and  if  it  had  not 
struck  against  it  I  would  not  have  felt  the 
pain.  And  when  I  strike  another  man's 
body  I  feel  pretty  sure  that,  if  he  has  any 
mind  at  all,  I  can  cause  a  pain  in  that 
mind.  Minds  and  living  bodies  and  other 
bodies  all  together  form  one  system  of 
things,  which,  taking  the  word  in  its 
widest  sense,  I  can  call  nature. 

Here  at  once  there  arises  in  my  mind 
a  very  natural  question.  What  kind  of  a 
thing  is  this  one  being  of  which  I  find 
myself  to  be  a  part,  and  which  I  know  as 
nature  ?  In  one  respect  I  know  it  is  like 


God  in  Nature.  57 

my  own  body,  in  that  it  is  composed  of 
parts  knit  together  into  a  system.  But 
is  it  like  my  body  in  another  thing,  and 
a  very  important  thing, — does  this  vast 
organism  reveal  Mind  in  the  same  general 
way  in  which  my  body  reveals  mind,  and 
other  men's  bodies  reveal  mind  ?  Is  a 
Mind  revealed  by  the  whole  of  nature,  as 
minds  are  by  some  of  its  parts  ?  And  can 
we  by  interpreting  the  signs  of  Mind  as 
seen  in  the  whole  of  nature  gain  some  just 
idea  of  the  attributes  of  that  Mind  ?  The 
problem,  you  see,  is  precisely  similar  to 
the  one  that  meets  us  every  time  that  we 
see  the  body  of  another  man.  Shall  we 
infer  mind  ?  and  if  so,  what  kind  of  a 
mind?  So  here;  shall  we  infer  Mind? 
and  if  so,  what  kind  of  a  Mind?  The 
mass  of  reflective  men  in  all  ages  are 
impelled  to  answer :  "  Yes,  the  world  is 
full  of  reason,  and  plan,  and  marvellous 
adaptation ;  we  may  infer  Mind,  and  we 
cannot  set  limits  to  its  powers." 

Now,  to  ask  a  man,  who  has  expressed 


52          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

this  conviction,  to  show  us  this  Mind,  in 
any  other  way  than  to  point  out  the  marks 
which  reveal  it,  is  manifestly  just  as  absurd 
as  it  would  be  to  ask  him  to  point  out  the 
mind  of  another  man.  He  can  show  you 
the  body  of  the  man,  and  he  can  show 
you  how  reasonably  the  body  acts,  but 
more  than  this  he  cannot  do,  and  more 
than  this  you  cannot  expect  of  him.  It 
seems  fair  to  ask  you  to  be  as  just  to  the 
great  Mind  of  which  we  are  speaking,  as 
you  are  to  other  minds,  and  to  content 
yourself  with  evidence  of  the  same  nature. 
The  question  is  simply,  whether  the  sys- 
tem of  things  as  a  whole  indicates  reason, 
or  does  not.  If  you  decide  that  it  does, 
does  this  not  end  the  matter? 

But  you  may  object,  and  rightly,  that 
there  is  still  some  ambiguity  in  the  phrase 
"  to  reveal  mind,"  insomuch  as  the  phrase 
is  often  used  in  two  quite  distinct  senses. 
Sometimes  we  say  that  a  watch  reveals 
mind,  when  we  do  not  mean  at  all  that 
the  watch  has  the  mind,  but  that  the 


God  in  Nature.  jj 

watchmaker,  who  made  it,  has.  In  one 
sense  of  the  word  "reveal,"  the  watch 
reveals  mind,  and  in  another  sense,  the 
watchmaker  does.  In  which  of  these 
senses  does  nature  reveal  mind?  as  a 
something  that  leads  one  to  infer  mind 
in  a  something  else  that  has  preceded  it 
or  is  connected  with  it?  or  as  a  something 
that  reveals  mind  directly  through  itself, 
as  a  man's  body  reveals  his  mind?  Let 
us  see. 

How  do  we  come  to  believe  that  such  a 
thing  as  a  watch  reveals  mind  at  all  ?  We 
certainly  do  not  come  to  the  belief  by 
observing  that  the  actions  of  the  watch  are 
like  our  own  actions,  and  then  inferring 
that  they  have  the  same  meaning  as  ex- 
pressions of  mind.  We  reason  in  this 
way  about  the  watchmaker,  but  not  about 
the  watch.  About  the  watch  we  reason 
as  follows:  We  know  by  experience  that 
our  own  bodies  can  act  upon  other  things 
about  us,  and  change  their  character  and 
arrangement.  We  know,  too,  that  we  can 

5* 


5^          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

form  a  plan  in  our  minds  of  the  way  in 
which  we  would  like  to  arrange  the  bodies 
around  us,  and  can  then,  through  the 
actions  of  our  bodies,  impress  upon  them 
this  plan.  When  we  observe  the  bodies  of 
other  men,  we  see  that  things  acted  upon 
by  their  bodies  seem  to  be  arranged  ac- 
cording to  plan  too,  or,  to  speak  more 
strictly,  seem  to  be  arranged  as  they  are 
arranged  after  we  have  acted  upon  them 
through  our  bodies  and  impressed  upon 
them  the  plan  in  our  minds.  For  instance, 
if  I  find  it  inconvenient  to  shelter  myself 
from  the  rain  in  a  hollow  tree,  and  form  an 
idea  of  some  other  shelter  which  would 
be  better,  and  then  make  a  frame  of  poles 
and  cover  it  with  thatch,  I  know  very  well 
that  the  arrangement  of  the  poles  and  the 
straw  is  somehow  connected  with  the  plan 
in  my  mind,  and  realize  that  if  the  plan 
had  been  different  the  structure  would 
have  been  different.  And  when  I  observe 
the  body  of  another  man  going  through 
the  motions  of  building  a  similar  structure, 


God  in  Nature.  55 

and  at  last  see  the  completed  hut,  I  can- 
not help  seeing  that  the  result  is  of  the 
same  sort  as  what  I  brought  about  myself. 
When  I  realize  this,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  the  thing  indicates  a  plan  in  his  mind, 
since  a  similar  thing  was  the  expression  of 
a  plan  in  mine.  I  never  think  of  connect- 
ing the  plan  immediately  with  the  hut, 
but  with  the  man  who  built  it ;  and  when 
I  say  the  hut  indicates  plan  or  purpose, 
I  mean  only  that  it  has  marks  about  it 
which  would  lead  me  to  suppose,  even  if 
I  should  find  it  now  ready  made  and  in  a 
desert,  that  it  has  had  a  certain  connection 
with  a  human  body,  and  that  that  human 
body  has  had  in  the  mind  connected  with 
it  a  plan  of  the  hut. 

So  that  there  is  this  very  important 
difference  between  the  two  senses  of  the 
word  in  which  the  watch  and  the  watch- 
maker can  be  said  to  "  reveal"  mind.  In 
the  case  of  the  man,  we  can  say  that  mind 
is  revealed  as  directly  and  immediately  as 
it  is  possible  for  another  mind  to  be  re- 


56          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

vealed;  and  that  this  revelation  does  not 
imply  any  other  object  existing  before  the 
man,  in  which  the  mind  is  revealed,  but 
it  is  revealed  here  and  now  in  him.  In 
the  case  of  the  watch,  some  other  object 
is  implied,  in  which  the  mind  is  more 
immediately  revealed,  and  to  which  the 
watch  refers  us.  In  every  case  our  ulti- 
mate reference  is  to  the  more  immediate 
revelation  of  mind  as  we  find  it  in  the 
man.  Objects  which  reveal  mind  as  the 
watch  does,  are  simply  objects  which  we 
recognize  as  having  a  certain  connection 
with  objects  that  reveal  mind  as  men  do. 
I  ask,  then,  in  which  of  the  two  senses 
of  the  word  does  nature  as  a  whole  reveal 
mind  ?  If  it  really  reveals  mind  at  all  it 
must  be  in  one  of  the  two  senses,  for  there 
are  only  these  two.  If  nature  reveals 
mind  as  a  watch  does,  you  must  mean  by 
this  that  you  are  able  to  go  back  from 
what  you  see  now  to  something  else  that 
reveals  mind  more  immediately  and  di- 
rectly, just  as  to  explain  the  watch  you  go 


God  in  Nature.  57 

back  to  the  revelation  of  mind  in  the 
watchmaker.  But  have  we  any  reason  to 
believe  that  by  going  back  farther  and 
farther  we  will  find  mind  revealed  more 
directly  than  we  do  in  the  world  as  we  see 
it  now?  Can  we  expect,  passing  from 
present  nature,  which  we  regard  as  only 
the  watch,  the  mindless  object  arranged  by 
mind,  to  come  to  a  something  which  will 
stand  before  us  as  showing  mind  in  this 
higher  sense?  Surely  nature,  this  great 
complex  of  which  we  ourselves  are  a  part, 
is  quite  as  wonderful  and  as  full  of  reason 
to-day  as  it  has  ever  been  in  the  past. 
Surely  there  is  no  ground  to  expect  that 
by  going  back  we  will  ever  find  a  time 
when  we  can  say :  "  Now  I  have  passed 
from  the  watch  to  the  watchmaker,  and 
here  I  may  stop  in  my  search  for  mind." 
And  if  the  Mind  which  is  revealed  in 
nature  is  as  immediately  revealed  here  and 
now  as  it  can  be  anywhere  else  or  at  any 
other  time;  if,  that  is, we  regard  all  nature, 
in  all  times,  as  revealing  Mind  in  the  same 


58          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

way,  and  not  as  referring  us  back  to  some- 
thing else,  should  we  not  look  upon  na- 
ture, not  as  we  do  upon  the  watch,  but 
rather  as  we  do  upon  the  watchmaker?  as 
we  do  upon  the  man  standing  in  front  of 
us,  and  now  revealing  his  present  mind 
through  words  and  actions  ?  Why  should 
we  look  upon  the  world  as  an  automaton, 
whose  connection  with  mind  is  not  of  the 
present  but  of  the  past?  Is  not  Reason 
now  active  about  us  as  well  as  in  us  ? 
Why  banish  it  from  the  world  in  which 
we  live? 

Now  the  name  which  men  have  applied 
to  the  Mind  which  is  revealed  in  nature, 
and  in  every  part  of  nature,  is  God.  And 
the  view  of  things  which  would  look  upon 
the  world  as  we  do  upon  the  watch,  refer- 
ring its  revelation  of  mind  to  the  past,  as 
I  have  shown  is  done  by  the  argument 
which  we  discussed  in  the  first  chapter,  is 
simply  a  view  which  puts  God  altogether 
out  of  the  present  world,  and  lets  us  see  in 
the  present  world  only  the  results  of  His 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

tn  Nature. 

former  activity.  But  how  near  would  you 
feel  to  another  man  if  you  knew  that  you 
could  never  get  nearer  to  him  than  merely 
to  discover  indications  that  at  some  past 
time  he  had  thought,  or  felt,  or  acted? 
When  one  reads  a  book  by  a  man  long 
dead  it  is  not  the  same  as  when  one  sees 
before  him  his  friend,  and  speaks,  and  is 
answered,  knowing  that  mind  reflects  mind 
as  closely  as  mind  can  reflect  mind.  And 
is  it  any  more  satisfactory  for  the  soul  that 
cries  out  for  God  to  be  referred  to  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  world  and  a  First  Cause 
of  things?  Can  he  get  no  nearer  to  the 
Divine  than  that  ?  The  arguments  for 
God  as  usually  stated  do  not  seem  to  bring 
him  any  nearer,  but,  fortunately  for  man, 
his  inmost  convictions  are  sometimes  more 
reasonable  and  more  true  than  his  attempts 
to  justify  his  convictions;  and,  in  spite  of 
arguments,  the  religious  mind  has  always 
felt  somehow  much  nearer  to  God.  Men 
have  recognized  in  the  daily  experiences 
of  their  own  souls  the  present  goodness 


60          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

of  God.  They  have  seen  in  the  rich 
beauty  and  admirable  arrangement  of  this 
great  world  what  has  made  quite  credible 
to  them  the  conception  of  a  Mind  so  em- 
bracing the  whole  of  things  as  to  contain 
in  its  plan  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  or  the 
robing  of  a  flower.  If  I  should  ask  you 
to  abandon  the  groping  for  God  in  the  dim 
and  distant  past,  or  at  least  to  supplement 
it  by  looking  for  God  in  the  present  too, 
I  should  not  be  asking  you  to  accept  a 
new  way  of  finding  Him  in  the  world. 
I  should  only  be  asking  you  to  make  clear 
to  yourself  the  way  in  which  you  have 
always  found  Him  there:  to  realize  that 
the  lack  of  clearness  and  consistency  in 
your  thought  has  sometimes  led  you  to  be 
much  more  unjust  to  the  Mind  in  nature 
than  you  have  been  to  the  little  minds  in 
nature.  That  you  should  reason  about 
them  in  just  the  same  way  was  well  recog- 
nized in  the  last  century  by  that  brilliant 
scholar  and  charming  gentleman  Bishop 
Berkeley,  whose  works  deserve  more  atten- 


God  in  Nature.  61 

tion  than  the  men  of  our  day  allot  them. 
I  cannot  do  better  than  to  close  this 
chapter  with  a  sentence  from  his  gifted  pen 
on  our  knowledge  of  God  and  man : 

"  Hence  it  is  plain  that  we  do  not  see 
a  man, — if  by  man  is  meant  that  which 
lives,  moves,  perceives,  and  thinks  as  we 
do, — but  only  such  a  certain  collection  of 
ideas*  as  directs  us  to  think  there  is  a  dis- 
tinct principle  of  thought  and  motion,  like 
to  ourselves,  accompanying  and  represented 
by  it.  And  after  the  same  manner  we  see 
God;  all  the  difference  is  that,  whereas 
some  one  finite  and  narrow  assemblage  of 
ideas  denotes  a  particular  human  mind, 
whithersoever  we  direct  our  view,  we  do 
at  all  times  and  in  all  places  perceive  mani- 
fest tokens  of  the  Divinity, — everything 
we  see,  hear,  feel,  or  anywise  perceive  by 
sense,  being  a  sign  or  effect  of  the  power 
of  God ;  as  is  our  perception  of  those  very 
motions  which  are  produced  by  men." 

*  By  "  ideas"  Berkeley  here  means  simply  bodily 
qualities. 

6 


CHAPTER    IV. 

The  Witness  of  Literature. 

I  PROPOSE  in  the  present  chapter  to  give 
a  few  extracts  from  literature  to  show  that 
the  argument  for  God  which  I  have  given, 
and  the  way  of  looking  at  God's  relation 
to  the  world  which  I  have  advocated,  are 
in  no  sense  new  or  strange,  but  on  the 
contrary  so  natural  that  men  have  always, 
though  sometimes  inconsistently  and  often 
unconsciously,  held  to  them  and  rested 
upon  them.  I  shall  give  a  very  few  ex- 
tracts, though  I  might  give  very  many; 
and  I  shall  take  them  almost  at  random, 
for  in  such  a  wealth  of  material  it  is  hard 
to  choose. 

The  first  are  from  the  account  given  by 
Xenophon  of  a  conversation  which  Socra- 
tes, the  great  pagan  moralist,  held  with 
Aristodemus  the  Little.  It  would  seem 
that  this  Aristodemus  objected  to  offering 


T/ie  Witness  of  Literature.  63 

prayers  and  sacrifices  himself,  and  ridi- 
culed those  who  did  offer  them.  Socrates 
points  out  to  him  at  length  the  evidences 
of  intelligence  and  of  benevolent  purpose 
to  be  seen  in  the  structure  of  man's  own 
body,  and  then  the  dialogue  continues : 

"'And  do  you  think  that  you  yourself 
have  any  portion  of  intelligence?'  '  Ques- 
tion me,  at  least,  and  I  will  answer.'  '  And 
can  you  suppose  that  nothing  intelligent 
exists  anywhere  else?  When  you  know 
that  you  have  in  your  body  but  a  small 
portion  of  the  earth,  which  is  vast,  and  a 
small  portion  of  the  water,  which  is  vast, 
and  that  your  frame  is  constituted  for  you 
to  receive  only  a^  small  portion  of  each  of 
other  things  that  are  vast,  do  you  think 
that  you  have  seized  for  yourself,  by  some 
extraordinary  good  fortune,  intelligence 
alone  which  exists  nowhere  else,  and  that 
this  assemblage  of  vast  bodies,  countless 
in  number,  is  maintained  in  order  by  some- 
thing void  of  reason  ?'  '  By  Jupiter,  I  can 
hardly  suppose  that  there  is  any  ruling 


64.          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

intelligence  among  that  assemblage  of 
bodies,  for  I  do  not  see  the  directors,  as 
I  see  the  agent  of  things  which  are  done 
here.'  '  Nor  do  you  see  your  own  soul, 
which  is  the  director  of  your  body ;  so 
that,  by  like  reasoning,  you  may  say  that 
you  yourself  do  nothing  with  understand- 
ing, but  everything  by  chance.' " 

******* 
" '  Consider  also,  my  good  youth/  con- 
tinued Socrates,  '  that  your  mind,  existing 
within  your  body,  directs  your  body  as  it 
pleases ;  and  it  becomes  you  therefore  to 
believe  that  the  intelligence  pervading  all 
things  directs  all  things  as  may  be  agree- 
able to  it,  and  not  to  think  that  while  your 
eye  can  extend  its  sight  over  many  furlongs, 
that  of  the  divinity  is  unable  to  see  all 
things  at  once,  or  that  while  your  mind  can 
think  of  things  here  or  things  in  Egypt  or 
Sicily,  the  mind  of  the  deity  is  incapable  of 
regarding  everything  at  the  same  time.' " 

*    I    quote    from   Watson's    version.      Memorabilia, 
Book  I.  chap.  iv. 


The  Witness  of  Literature.  65 

It  is  sufficiently  evident  from  this  that 
Socrates  looked  upon  the  mind  in  nature 
as  revealed  after  the  same  manner  as  the 
mind  connected  with  a  human  body, — that 
is,  he  believed  it  to  be  revealed  as  directly 
as  one  mind  can  be  revealed  to  another. 
His  conception  is  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  idea  of  God  presented  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  and  we  may  see  from  his  life  that 
he  lived  in  the  realization  of  an  intimate 
relation  with  the  Divine.  He  was  a  pagan, 
and  seems  also  to  have  believed  in  the 
gods  of  the  popular  mythology ;  but  it 
would  appear  that  this  belief  was  subordi- 
nate to  his  constant  recognition  of  the  all- 
pervading  Mind.  He  certainly  believed  in 
a  present  God. 

If  we  turn  from  pagan  literature  to  Jew- 
ish, we  may  almost  take  that  bodily  as 
an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  men  have 
thought  cf  God  as  revealed  at  once  in 
nature,  as  ever  present  in  the  world,  and 
not  to  be  found  merely  at  the  end  of  an 
indefinite  regress  into  the  past.  The  whole 

6* 


66          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

teaching  of  the  Old  Testament  is  of  a  God 
in  the  closest  and  most  intimate  relation 
to  nature,  and  whose  thought  and  purpose 
can  be  read  in  the  order  and  changes  of 
things.  The  book  of  the  Psalms  is  full 
of  passages  which  give  expression  to  this 
thought  in  forms  of  the  highest  beauty. 
Can  any  other  view  of  God  be  reconciled 
with  the  spirit  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fourth  psalm  ? 

"  He  appointed  the  moon  for  seasons  : 
the  sun  knoweth  his  going  down. 

"  Thou  makest  darkness,  and  it  is  night : 
wherein  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest  do 
creep  forth. 

"  The  young  lions  roar  after  their  prey, 
and  seek  their  meat  from  God. 

"  The  sun  ariseth,  they  gather  themselves 
together,  and  lay  them  down  in  their  dens. 

"  Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work  and  to 
his  labor  until  the  evening. 

"  O  Lord,  how  manifold  are  thy  works  ! 
in  wisdom  hast  thou  made  them  all :  the 
earth  is  full  of  thy  riches. 


The  Witness  of  Literature.  6j 

"  So  is  this  great  and  wide  sea,  wherein 
are  things  creeping  innumerable,  both 
small  and  great  beasts. 

"  There  go  the  ships :  there  is  that  le- 
viathan, whom  thou  hast  made  to  play 
therein. 

"  These  wait  all  upon  thee ;  that  thou 
mayest  give  them  their  meat  in  due  season. 

"  That  thou  givest  them  they  gather : 
thou  openest  thine  hand,  they  are  filled 
with  good. 

"Thou  hidest  thy  face,  they  are  troub- 
led :  thou  takest  away  their  breath,  they 
die,  and  return  to  their  dust. 

"  Thou  sendest  forth  thy  spirit,  they  are 
created :  and  thou  renewest  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

"The  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  endure 
forever:  the  Lord  shall  rejoice  in  his 
works. 

"  He  looketh  on  the  earth,  and  it  trem- 
bleth :  he  toucheth  the  hills,  and  they 
smoke. 

"  I  will  sing  unto  the  Lord  as  long  as  I 


68          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

live :  I  will  sing  praise  to  my  God  while  I 
have  my  being. 

"  My  meditation  of  him  shall  be  sweet  : 
I  will  be  glad  in  the  Lord." 

And  would  the  trust  and  confidence  of 
the  twenty-third  psalm  seem  natural  in  one 
who  did  not  feel  God  very  near  to  him  ? 
In  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  surely  this  view 
of  God  as  now  seen  through  nature  is  to 
be  found. 

And  what  shall  we  say  to  the  teachings 
of  the  New  Testament  from  beginning  to 
end  ?  What  can  be  plainer  than  this : 

"  And  why  take  ye  thought  for  rai- 
ment? Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
how  they  grow ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do 
they  spin : 

"  And  yet  I  say  unto  you,  That  even 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these. 

"  Wherefore,  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass 
of  the  field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow 
is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall  he  not  much 
more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  ? 


The  Witness  of  Literature.  69 

"  Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying, 
What  shall  we  eat?  or,  What  shall  we 
drink?  or,  Wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed  ? 

"  (For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gen- 
tiles seek:)  for  your  heavenly  Father 
knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these 
things." 

This  certainly  does  not  read  as  if  our 
evidence  for  God  directed  us  always  to 
the  past,  and  away  from  the  world  that  is. 
Nor  is  St.  Paul  at  the  Areopagus  less  clear 
in  his  teaching: 

"  God  that  made  the  world  and  all 
things  therein,  seeing  that  he  is  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth,  dwelleth  not  in  temples 
made  with  hands ; 

"  Neither  is  worshipped  with  men's 
hands,  as  though  he  needed  anything,  see- 
ing he  giveth  to  all  life,  and  breath,  and 
all  things; 

"And  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  na- 
tions of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  hath  determined  the 


/o          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

times  before  appointed,  and  the  bounds  of 
their  habitation; 

"That  they  should  seek  the  Lord,  if 
haply  they  might  feel  after  him,  and  find 
him,  though  he  be  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us: 

"  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being;  as  certain  also  of  your 
own  poets  have  said,  For  we  are  also  his 
offspring." 

One  cannot  feel  that  he  lives,  and  moves, 
and  has  his  being  in  that  which  he  can 
only  reach  by  going  back  to  the  creation 
of  the  world.  The  words  denote  the  most 
intimate  relation  between  man's  life  and 
God. 

The  devotional  literature  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  is  pervaded  with  the  same 
spirit.  This  is  well  shown  in  the  collects 
in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer: 

"  O  God,  whose  if ever-failing  providence 
ordereth  all  things  both  in  heaven  and 
earth;  We  humbly  beseech  thee,  to  put 
away  from  us  all  hurtful  things,  and  to 


The  Witness  of  Literature.  ji 

give  us  those  things  which  are  profitable 
for  us ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

"  O  Lord,  we  beseech  thee,  let  thy  con- 
tinual pity  cleanse  and  defend  thy  Church ; 
and,  because  it  cannot  continue  in  safety 
without  thy  succor,  preserve  it  evermore 
by  thy  help  and  goodness ;  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord." 

It  is  but  natural  to  find  the  language  of 
worship  expressing  such  a  view  of  God, 
for,  as  I  have  said  before,  religion,  in  any 
true  sense  of  the  word,  would  hardly  seem 
possible  to  one  who  believed  in  a  God  in 
no  close  relation  to  him  and  to  the  world. 
The  religious  mind  tends  to  regard  nature 
as  did  George  Herbert : 

"  O  sacred  Providence,  who  from  end  to  end 
Strongly  and  sweetly  movest!  shall  I  write, 
And  not  of  Thee,  through  whom  my  fingers  bend 
To  hold  my  quill?     Shall  they  not  do  Thee  right?" 

Here  nature  is  not  separated  from  God  as 
a  thing  at  a  distance.  God  is  found  in  and 
through  nature,  giving  nature  meaning 


J2          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

and  worth.     It   was   thus   that   Coleridge 
saw  God  in  the  world : 

"Thou  first  and  chief,  sole  Sovereign  of  the  Vale, 
O  struggling  with  the  darkness  all  the  night, 
And  visited  all  night  by  troops  of  stars, 
Or  when  they  climb  the  sky  or  when  they  sink; 
Companion  of  the  Morning-star  at  dawn, 
Thyself  earth's  rosy  star,  and  of  the  dawn 
Co-herald :  wake,  O  wake,  and  utter  praise ! 
Who  sank  thy  sunless  pillars  deep  in  earth? 
Who  fill'd  thy  countenance  with  rosy  light? 
Who  made  thee  parent  of  perpetual  streams? 

"  And  you,  ye  five  wild  torrents  fiercely  glad ! 
Who  called  you  forth  from  night  and  utter  death? 
From  dark  and  icy  caverns  called  you  forth, 
Down  those  precipitous,  black,  jagged  rocks, 
Forever  shattered,  and  the  same  forever? 
Who  gave  you  your  invulnerable  life, 
Your  strength,  your  speed,  your  fury,  and  your  joy, 
Unceasing  thunder,  and  eternal  foam? 
And  who  commanded  (and  the  silence  came), 
Here  let  the  billows  stiffen  and  have  rest? 

"  Ye  Ice-falls !  ye  that  from  the  mountain's  brow 
Adown  enormous  ravines  slope  amain, — 
Torrents,  methinks,  that  heard  a  mighty  Voice, 
And  stopped  at  once  amid  their  maddest  plunge ! 


The  Witness  of  Literature.  73 

Motionless  torrents!     Silent  cataracts! 
Who  made  you  glorious  as  the  Gates  of  Heaven, 
Beneath  the  keen  full  moon?     Who  bade  the  sun 
Clothe    you    with    rainbows  ?      Who,    with     living 

flowers 

Of  loveliest  blue,  spread  garlands  at  your  feet? — 
God!  let  the  torrents,  like  a  shout  of  nations, 
Answer !  and  let  the  ice-plains  echo,  God ! 
God  !  sing,  ye  meadow-streams,  with  gladsome  voice, 
Ye  pine  groves,  with  your  soft  and  soul-like  sounds. 
And  they  too  have  a  voice,  yon  piles  of  snow, 
And  in  their  perilous  fall  shall  thunder,  God! 

"  Ye  living  flowers  that  skirt  the  eternal  frost ! 
Ye  wild  goats  sporting  round  the  eagle's  nest ! 
Ye  eagles,  playmates  of  the  mountain-storm ! 
Ye  lightnings,  the  dread  arrows  of  the  clouds! 
Ye  signs  and  wonders  of  the  element ! 
Utter  forth  God,  and  fill  the  hills  with  praise!" 

This  is  the  view  of  nature  held  by  the 
religious  mind,  as  I  have  said,  in  all  ages. 
It  might  be  illustrated  by  countless  cita- 
tions, but  I  will  give  no  more.  Those  who 
have  held  it  have  not  always  clearly  com- 
prehended its  significance,  nor  have  they 
seen  that  their  formal  reasonings  were  not 

7 


7^          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

always  in  sympathy  with  it.  Nevertheless 
they  held  it,  and  lived  by  it,  and  gained 
great  comfort  from  it,  as  do  multitudes  to- 
day, who  according  to  their  formal  argu- 
ments have  no  right  to  such  comfort  at 
all.  It  is  one  thing  to  have  a  belief,  and 
another  to  be  able  to  put  it  into  a  formula 
or  reason  about  it. 


CHAPTER    V. 

Theism  or  Pantheism. 

ALTHOUGH  the  religious  literature  of  the 
past  and  the  present  seems  to  testify  to  the 
fact,  that  the  way  of  finding  God  in  the 
world  which  I  have  presented  is  natural  to 
men,  yet  it  is  quite  possible  that  when 
you  think  about  it  you  are  at  first  repelled 
by  it.  "You  wish  me  to  look  upon  the 
world/'  you  say,  "  as  revealing  God,  as  a 
man's  body  reveals  his  mind.  Is  not  this 
a  strange  conception, — the  world  the  body 
of  God  ?  Has  God  a  body?  Is  the  world, 
then,  God  ?"  I  will  answer  this  by  making 
clear  what  this  view  of  God  really  implies, 
and  what  it  does  not. 

And  first  I  must  distinguish  between 
Theism  and  what  is  known  as  Pantheism. 
When  I  explained  the  difference  between 
Theism  and  Deism,  I  said  that  theism  be- 
lieves in  a  God  revealed  in  nature  as  not 


j6          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

merely  Creator,  but  as  Preserver  and  Gov- 
ernor of  things.  I  did  not  in  any  sense 
call  nature  God,  but  spoke  of  God  as  re- 
vealed in  nature.  I  afterwards  explained 
at  some  length  the  way  in  which  He  is 
revealed  in  nature,  and  showed  that  when 
we  say  we  find  Him  there,  we  mean  we 
find  Him  as  we  find  another  man's  mind, 
through  the  indications  in  his  body.  This 
is  theism. 

The  word  pantheism  is  used  very 
vaguely  and  loosely,  but  when  it  has  any 
distinctive  meaning  at  all,  it  means  simply 
the  belief  that  nature  is  God.  A  consist- 
ent pantheist  is  a  man  who  holds,  not  that 
one  is  to  find  God  as  a  something  distinct 
from  nature  and  seen  through  nature,  but 
that  one  is  to  look  upon  nature  itself  as 
God.  Evidently,  such  a  man  cannot  think 
that  God  is  inferred  from  the  whole  of 
things  as  his  neighbor's  mind  is  inferred 
from  the  actions  of  his  body.  Evidently, 
the  whole  argument  which  has  to  do  with 
the  search  for  minds,  and  the  application 


Theism  or  Pantheism.  77 

of  this  reasoning  to  the  search  for  God  is 
quite  useless  to  the  pantheist.  He  can  see 
a  good  deal  of  the  world  directly.  If  this 
is  God,  then  he  can  see  God  at  once,  and 
needs  no  process  of  inference.  But  it  fol- 
lows that  God  is  not,  then,  a  mind  or  any- 
thing like  a  mind,  beyond  his  own  and 
revealed  to  it  as  minds  are  revealed.  One 
does  not  thus  see  other  minds.  More 
than  this :  the  emotions  of  love  and  ven- 
eration, which  naturally  arise  when  one 
mind  feels  itself  in  relation  to  another, 
have  no  logical  place  in  the  mind  of  the  pan- 
theist. What  one  loves  is  a  person,  and  if 
one  calls  up  in  himself  this  emotion  in  the 
presence  of  what  he  does  not  recognize  as 
anything  like  a  person,  in  the  plain  com- 
mon sense  of  that  word,  then  he  must 
have  deceived  himself  into  having  the 
emotion  through  some  unwarranted  asso- 
ciation of  ideas  with  the  words  which  he 
is  using,  or  through  some  want  of  clear- 
ness in  his  thought.  The  very  use  of 
the  word  God  is  likely  to  call  up  religious 

7* 


j8          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

emotion,  from  the  rich  associations  of  the 
word,  and  from  what  it  naturally  suggests 
to  the  man  who  pronounces  it.  If  the 
pantheist  keeps  calling  the  world  God,  he 
may  educate  himself  into  a  very  high 
respect  for  the  world,  but  after  all  it  is 
only  the  world,  and  the  name  does  not 
add  anything  to  it.  It  does  not  imply  the 
discovery  that  the  word  God  in  its  natu- 
ral and  common  sense  may  properly  be 
applied  to  it.  Some  so-called  pantheists 
have,  to  be  sure,  been  very  religious  men, 
but  they  seem  to  have  had  a  capacity,  like 
the  four  Jews  under  Nebuchadnezzar,  of 
thriving  on  very  little.  In  so  far  as  they 
have  really  been  pantheists,  and  not  merely 
somewhat  inconsistent  theists,  they  have 
had  no  right  to  be  religious  at  all  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  And  in  so  far 
as  their  thinking  has  given  them  a  right  to 
what  we  call  religion,  it  has  been  simply 
some  form  of  theism. 

Lord  Tennyson's  little  poem   on  "  The 
Higher    Pantheism"   presents    a    self-con- 


Theism  or  Pantheism.  79 

tradictory  title;  for  where  this  way  of 
thinking  is  really  pantheism  it  is  not 
"higher,"  and  where  it  is  "higher"  it  is 
not  pantheism.  It  is  the  theistic  element 
in  it  which  appeals  to  religious  emotion. 

"  The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills  and 

the  plains, — 
Are  not  these,  O  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who  reigns  ? 

"  Is  not  the  Vision  He  ?     Tho'  He  be  not  that  which 

He  seems? 

Dreams  are  true  while  they  last,  and  do  we  not  live 
in  dreams?" 

"  Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with 

Spirit  can  meet, — 

Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands 
and  feet." 

The  pantheist,  if  he  is  to  be  consistent, 
and  if  he  is  to  differ  at  all  from  the  theist, 
must  repudiate  this  last  couplet  altogether, 
or  use  the  words  in  new  and  vague  senses. 
If  God  is  simply  the  world  and  nothing 
more,  He  cannot  hear  any  more  than  a 


8o          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

dead  body,  nor  can  Spirit  meet  with  Spirit 
in  any  sense  at  all.  What  we  are  to  speak 
to  in  such  a  case  is  simply 

"  The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills   and 
the  plains," 

and  speaking  becomes  no  longer  desirable 
or  significant.  Nor  can  we  be  much  stirred 
by  reflection  upon  "the  Vision  of  Him 
who  reigns"  if  we  keep  in  mind  that  this 
is  simply  saying  over  again  what  has  been 
said  in  the  line  just  quoted,  and  adds 
nothing  at  all  to  the  thought.  We  are 
tricked  out  of  the  emotion  which  properly 
hovers  around  capital  letters,  and  forget 
for  the  moment  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  "  reigning"  after  this  fashion. 

From  all  this  it  is  evident  that  the  view 
of  God  which  1  have  presented  as  reason- 
able cannot  in  any  proper  sense  of  that 
term  be  called  pantheism.  It  is  all  the 
difference  between  soul  and  no  soul  in  the 
system  of  things.  This  view  does  not  say 
that  God  is  nature,  but  that  God  is  seen 


Theism  or  Pantheism.  81 

through  nature  in  just  the  way  that  any 
mind  is  revealed  to  any  other  mind.  It 
insists  that  one  should  use  common  jus- 
tice in  arguing  about  God,  and  ask  oneself 
at  each  step  in  the  argument  whether  one 
would  argue  in  the  same  way  about  one's 
fellow-man.  The  man  who  holds  this 
view  distinguishes  between  the  body  of 
his  friend  and  the  mind  of  his  friend,  and 
realizes,  that  if  he  could  be  quite  sure  that 
a  mind  had  ceased  to  be  connected  with 
that  body,  his  attitude  towards  it  would  be 
very  different  from  what  it  is  now.  In  like 
manner,  when  he  looks  upon  the  world,  he 
believes  that  he  finds  revealed  in  it  some- 
thing analogous  to  the  mind  that  is  re- 
vealed in  his  friend.  He  does  not  con- 
found this  with  the  world  itself  any  more 
than  he  confounds  his  friend's  mind  with 
his  body.  It  is  this  something  which  he 
has  inferred  that  he  calls  God,  and  it  is 
this  that  is  the  object  of  his  religious  emo- 
tion. Should  he  come  to  believe  that 
there  are  not  in  the  world  marks  of  mind 


82          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

analogous  to  the  marks  of  mind  discovered 
in  a  human  body,  he  would  have  to  con- 
fess that  he  has  no  longer  a  God  in  the 
sense  in  which  he  has  all  along  used  the 
word.  He  does  not  in  the  least  believe, 
taking  those  words  in  their  usual  meaning, 
that  nature  is  God.  I  think  I  have  made 
sufficiently  plain  my  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  this  view  does  not  make 
nature  God. 

And  now  for  the  question,  whether  it 
does  not  make  the  world  as  it  were  the 
body  of  God,  and  whether  this  is  not  a 
startling  idea?  It  must  be  at  once  ad- 
mitted that  we  are  not  accustomed  to 
talking  in  this  way.  We  may  go  farther 
and  say  that  it  is  undesirable  to  talk  in 
this  way.  One  may  hold  that  the  relation 
of  God  to  the  world  has  in  it  something 
analogous  to  the  relation  of  man's  mind  to 
his  body,  and  yet  one  may  hold  at  the 
same  time  that  the  similarity  is  not  so 
close  that  it  justifies  one  in  applying  to  the 
world  this  term.  The  word  body  has  all 


Theism  or  Pantheism.  83 

sorts  of  associations  in  our  minds  which 
make  us  hesitate,  very  properly,  to  apply 
it  in  this  case.  We  think,  when  we  use 
the  word,  of  a  certain  shape  and  structure, 
and  of  certain  functions,  which  belong  to 
our  bodies  as  animal  bodies,  but  which  are 
not  found  in  the  system  of  things  taken 
as  a  whole,  and  should  not  be  associated 
with  that  whole.  The  trouble  here  is  in 
the  word  and  its  associations.  If  we  lay 
the  word  aside,  and  keep  in  mind  the 
thought,  that  what  is  meant  is  simply  that 
God  is  revealed  by  the  world  as  a  whole 
in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which 
a  man's  mind  is  revealed  by  the  little 
mass  of  matter  that  we  call  his  body, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  thought  that  is 
startling  or  even  new.  The  thought  has 
been  realized  dimly  by  many,  and  with 
some  clearness  by  a  few.  It  is  simply 
the  belief  in  a  present  God,  and  nothing 
more. 

Of  course  this  should   be  expressed  so 
as  to  avoid  misunderstanding.     A  rose  by 


8/f.          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

any  other  name  will  quite  possibly  not 
smell  as  sweet.  The  names  given  to 
things  affect  very  much  our  opinions  of 
the  things.  It  is  quite  possible  to  arouse 
in  a  mind  opposition  to  views  in  them- 
selves not  at  all  calculated  to  arouse  op- 
position, by  giving  those  views  an  unjust 
or  misleading  name.  The  unthinking  are 
very  apt  to  rest  in  the  name,  and  not  to  go 
on  to  a  careful  consideration  of  the  thought 
itself;  and  even  the  thinking  man,  who  is 
concerned  chiefly  with  thoughts  and  not 
words,  may  find  it  difficult  to  shake  off  the 
associations  which  an  unfortunate  name 
will  call  up.  So  avoid  expressing  this 
view  of  God,  and  of  His  presence  in  the 
world,  in  a  way  which  will  mislead  your- 
self and  others.  Avoid  using  words  which 
seem  strange  and  unaccustomed.  Of  one 
thing  you  may  be  quite  sure,  and  that  is, 
that  when  this  view  is  expressed  in  such  a 
way  as  to  be  really  understood,  it  will 
meet  with  no  opposition  from  men  of  a 
religious  mind,  who  have  always  believed 


Theism  or  Pantheism.  85 

just  this,  and  have  found  God  about  them 
in  the  world  of  to-day.  If  clearly  appre- 
hended, this  view  will  be  welcomed  as 
marking  out  theism  from  deism  on  the  one 
hand  and  pantheism  on  the  other. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature. 

IT  remains  to  consider  in  this  and  the 
following  chapter  two  or  three  objections 
which  it  is  supposed  can  be  justly  urged 
from  the  point  of  view  of  modern  science 
against  the  argument  for  God.  The  first 
is  from  the  reign  of  natural  law. 

I  have  some  distance  back  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  marvels  of  the 
"Arabian  Nights,"  which  seem  so  natural 
and  so  absorbing  to  the  mind  of  the  child, 
fail  to  interest  the  grown  man,  because 
they  seem  unreal  and  unreasonable.  He 
regards  them  as  unnatural  and  in  their 
nature  incredible,  and  the  flights  of  the  un- 
disciplined imagination  no  longer*  please. 
The  view  of  nature  as  arbitrary  and  always 
surprising,  which  is  natural  to  a  child  with- 
out much  experience  of  nature,  has  given 
place  in  the  mind  of  an  intelligent  man  to 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         8j 

a  view  of  nature  as  a  system  of  things 
having  a  certain  fixed  order  and  obeying 
certain  laws.  Gradually  there  has  emerged 
from  the  chaos  of  his  first  unconnected  ex- 
periences a  consciousness  of  regularity  and 
causal  connection.  He  no  longer  looks 
upon  anything  and  everything  as  possible, 
but  he  looks  for  what  he  has  come  to  re- 
gard as  natural,  and  he  looks  for  it 
because  he  believes  there  are  in  nature 
causes  which  would  regularly  produce  it. 
Where  there  are  such  causes  he  usually 
believes  the  effect  will  follow  without  fail, 
and  where  there  are  not  such  causes  he 
believes  that  it  will  not  happen.  The  de- 
scription of  the  way  in  which  causes  in 
nature  produce  their  effects  he  calls  natu- 
ral law,  and  he  does  not  often  expect  any 
natural  law  to  have  exceptions  which  may 
not  be  explained  through  the  action  of 
some  other  natural  law.  In  other  words, 
he  has  grown  to  have  a  tendency  to  regard 
the  order  of  nature  as  fixed  and  invariable. 
The  childhood  of  the  race  resembles 


88          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

that  of  the  individual  in  its  way  of  look- 
ing at  nature.  It  is  only  little  by  little 
that  the  view  taken  by  science  has  come 
to  be  accepted  at  all.  Nature  is  so  com- 
plex and  her  forces  so  variously  combined 
that  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  see  that  the 
same  causes  always  produce  the  same  ef- 
fects, and  that  the  order  of  things  is 
throughout  invariable.  That  there  is  an 
order  we  can  see  easily  enough,  and  that 
in  general  causes  and  effects  follow  each 
other  according  to  rule,  but  it  must  be 
confessed  that  we  have  not  yet  so  meas- 
ured and  weighed  and  compared  all  things 
as  to  be  able  to  say,  except  by  way  of  a 
guess,  that  there  are  no  exceptions  to  these 
rules,  but  that  all  that  happens  happens 
according  to  natural  law  and  as  a  neces- 
sary result  of  what  has  preceded  it.  Per- 
haps the  majority  of  men  still  hold  that 
the  reign  of  law  is  not  strictly  universal, 
and  that  a  complete  knowledge  would  re- 
veal in  nature  what  cannot  be  made  to  fall 
under  the  dominion  of  law;  but,  on  the 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         89 

other  hand,  many  minds  have  been  so  im- 
pressed with  what  has  been  thus  far  gained 
in  the  way  of  exact  knowledge  of  causes 
and  effects,  as  to  look  forward  with  con- 
fidence to  a  time  when  the  increase  of 
knowledge  will  show  that  all  things  with- 
out exception  are  bound  by  what  has  been 
called  natural  necessity,  and  come  and  go 
only  according  to  the  fixed  methods  known 
as  natural  laws.  Of  course  science,  of 
whose  very  essence  it  is  to  detect  uniform- 
ities and  rules  in  nature,  must  assume,  if 
only  as  a  working  theory,  that  all  things 
come  under  law;  but  whether  this  view 
taken  by  science  is  right  or  not  is  a  ques- 
tion which  science  cannot  settle  until 
human  knowledge  is  complete. 

While  men  have  been  reducing  the  oc- 
currences of  nature  as  a  whole  to  system 
and  discovering  law,  they  have  been  dis- 
covering that  that  little  fragment  of  nature 
which  we  call  a  man  is  not  a  merely  arbi- 
trary and  lawless  thing,  but  that  he  seems 
at  least  to  some  degree  to  fall  under  the 


po          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

dominion  of  law  like  other  things.  His 
body  certainly  acts  and  reacts  like  other 
animal  bodies,  and  the  science  of  medicine 
is  based  on  the  assumption  that  its  ways 
of  acting  will  be  regular  and  constant.  If 
there  were  not  a  certain  sequence  and  plan 
in  the  unfolding  of  his  mind,  no  mental 
science  would  be  possible.  And  when  we 
consider  that  much  discussed  and  quar- 
relled over  faculty,  the  human  will,  we 
must  all  admit  that  we  do  not  act  towards 
men  as  though  we  regarded  this  element 
in  them  as  purely  arbitrary  and  subject  to 
no  law  at  all.  We  use  persuasion  in  hopes 
of  moving  the  will,  and  we  threaten  pun- 
ishment in  hopes  of  frightening  it  into 
submission.  We  recognize  certain  mo- 
tives as  naturally  inducing  to  certain  ac- 
tions ;  and  we  often  regard  actions,  at  first 
glance  apparently  inexplicable,  as  suffi- 
ciently explained  when  we  discover  the 
motives  which  must  have  influenced  the 
doer.  When  we  say  that  it  is  natural  that 
a  man  should  act  in  this  way  or  that  or 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         p/ 

choose  this  or  that,  we  indicate  by  the 
very  use  of  the  word  "  natural"  that  hu- 
man actions  are  in  some  way  to  be  ac- 
counted for,  and  are  to  be  looked  upon 
as  at  least  in  part  natural  results  of  what 
has  preceded. 

There  are  some  who  believe  that  the 
subjection  of  man's  will  to  natural  law  is 
only  partial,  and  that  the  previous  state  of 
his  mind  and  the  motives  brought  to  bear 
on  it  will  not  completely  account  for  all 
he  chooses  and  does;  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  those  who  believe  that  what 
seems  inexplicable  in  men's  actions  is  not 
at  all  to  be  referred  to  a  will  free  in  such 
a  sense  as  to  break  the  uniformities  of 
nature,  but  to  be  referred  to  our  ignorance 
of  the  forces  which  are  actually  working 
within  and  around  men.  If  we  knew  all, 
they  say,  we  could  see  that  man's  actions 
are  fixed  and  subject  to  law.  Evidently 
this  dispute  cannot  be  settled  in  the 
present  stage  of  our  knowledge  by  an  ap- 
peal to  observation,  for  man  is  so  compli- 


$2          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

cated  and  intricate  a  being,  that  no  one 
yet  knows  with  sufficient  exactitude  the 
forces  which  are  bound  up  in  him  to  state 
with  any  certainty  whether  their  regular 
action  will  account  for  all  he  does  or  not. 
It  will  probably  be  long  before  the  dispute 
will  be  settled  by  an  appeal  to  experience. 
Now,  I  am  not  at  all  concerned  just 
here  with  the  question  whether  they  are 
right  who  believe  that  the  reign  of  natural 
law  in  external  nature  and  in  man  is  uni- 
versal and  without  exceptions,  or  they  who 
believe  that  the  order  of  nature  is  not  so 
fixed  that  it  cannot  be  and  is  not  set  aside 
by  something  which  does  not  fall  into  the 
chain  of  causes  and  effects.  This  ques- 
tion is  a  very  interesting  one  in  itself;  but 
I  am  now  discussing  the  argument  for 
God,  and  what  interests  me  here  is  the 
question :  How  would  it  affect  the  argu- 
ment for  God,  or  "would  it  affect  it  at  all, 
if  nature,  including  man,  were  found  to 
be  subject  to  fixed  and  unvarying  law? 
Would  it  do  away  with  God  ?  or  necessa- 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         pj 

rily  changeour^yiew  of  Him  as  in  close 
personal  relations  with  us  ?  The  question 
is  a  living  one,  for  there  are  many  persons 
who  think  that  God  is  revealed  as  breaking 
in  upon  the  order  of  nature  rather  than  as 
acting  in  and  through  that  natural  order, 
and  who  are  inclined  to  believe  that  a  view 
which  sees  in  all  nature  an  unbroken  reg- 
ularity does  away  with  God  altogether. 

In  answering  this  question  I  will  ask 
you  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  argument 
for  God  as  it  has  been  presented.  You 
remember  that  it  was  said  that  we  pass 
from  all  nature  to  God  very  much  as  we 
pass  by  inference  from  man's  body  and  its 
actions  to  man's  mind.  It  was  insisted 
that  the  search  for  minds  always  takes 
place  in  the  same  general  way,  whether 
the  mind  sought  be  a  small  one  or  a  very 
great  one.  But  if  the  reasoning  which 
leads  us  to  infer  man's  mind  and  that 
which  leads  us  to  infer  God  are  in  their 
nature  similar,  any  view  of  things  which 
applies  equally  to  man's  body  and  to  the 


94.          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

whole  of  nature  must  affect  the  two  argu- 
ments in  the  same  way.  If  such  a  view 
makes  it  impossible  to  infer  a  God,  it  must 
make  it  impossible  to  infer  another  man's 
mind;  and  if  it  does  not  destroy  the  ar- 
gument for  human  minds  it  should  not 
destroy  the  argument  for  God. 

Now,  if  we  have  reason  to  think  that  the 
laws  of  nature  are  uniform  and  invariable, 
and  everything  happens  according  to  natu- 
ral necessity,  then  of  course  we  have 
reason  to  think  that  man  is  subject  to 
this  natural  necessity  too.  We  must  look 
upon  every  word  we-  hear  him  utter  and 
every  motion  we  see  him  make  as  a  neces- 
sary result  of  what  has  preceded,  and  in 
no  sense  arbitrary  or  spontaneous.  If  we 
knew  all  the  natural  forces  at  work  in  him 
and  around  him,  and  had  some  skill  in 
computation,  we  could  predict  his  words 
and  acts  as  we  can  predict  that  an  egg  will 
be  broken  before  we  have  seen  it  touch  the 
ground.  Suppose  all  this  to  be  so.  Would 
we  think  that  this  human  body  in  front  of 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         95 

us,  now  speaking  wisely  and  acting  reason- 
ably, does  not  reveal  mind,  merely  because 
there  is  nothing  irregular  and  lawless  in 
these  words  and  actions  ?  Would  we 
doubt  that  a  long  series  of  benevolent  acts 
indicated  a  kindly  spirit,  even  if  these  acts 
were  persisted  in  with  the  greatest  regu- 
larity ?  Does  it  follow,  because  the  bodily 
signs  of  a  man's  thought  occur  in  an 
orderly  manner  to  be  explained  by  refer- 
ence to  the  general  laws  of  the  world,  that 
they  are  no  longer  signs  of  his  thought  ? 
The  argument  which  proved  them  to  be 
such  is  not  at  all  affected  by  their  being 
constant  and  regular. 

If  we  refer  to  our  experience  of  men, 
we  do  not  find  that  that  increasing  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  which  leads  us  to 
look  upon  the  unknown  element  in  men 
as  a  diminishing  quantity,  and  to  have  a 
growing  expectation  that  such  and  such 
human  actions  will  in  general  follow  as  a 
consequence  of  such  and  such  motives, — 
we  do  not  find  that  this  increasing  knowl- 


pd          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

edge  of  human  nature  as  a  thing  at  least 
to  some  degree  subject  to  uniform  laws  has 
had  any  tendency  to  make  us  believe  that 
men's  bodies  do  not  reveal  their  minds. 
Nor  do  we  any  the  less  believe  those 
minds  to  be  revealed  as  wise  or  unwise, 
good  or  bad. 

And  when  we  observe  those  who  have 
gone  over  to  the  extreme  view  that  every- 
thing in  man,  without  exception,  is  subject 
to  natural  necessity,  we  find  that  even  they 
are  not  in  the  least  inclined  to  give  up  a 
belief  in  other  men's  minds  as  revealed 
through  their  bodies.  Such  people  marry 
and  are  given  in  marriage  like  any  one  else. 
They  love  their  children,  and  believe  that 
they  are  loved  by  them  in  return.  They 
have  their  friendships  and  their  intimacies 
and  their  enmities  like  other  people.  They 
do  not  hesitate  to  use  persuasion  with 
their  fellows,  and  when  they  prefer  a  re- 
quest, they  look  for  it  to  be  granted.  In 
all  this  they  do  not  see  any  infringement 
of  natural  law,  and  they  would  maintain 


The  Reign  of  Law  in  Nature.         97 

that  if  it  is  found  'that  one  mind  can  be 
revealed  to  another  mind  and  in  any  way 
influence  its  action,  the  description  of  the 
way  in  which  minds  thus  interact  may 
properly  be  called  a  natural  law,  and  ac- 
cepted as  an  undoubted  truth.  Their  be- 
lief seems  in  no  way  to  change  their 
practical  attitude  towards  those  about 
them,  or  to  make  their  social  relations 
less  close  and  intimate. 

I  ask  then,  why,  if  the  doctrine  of  the 
uniformity  of  nature's  methods  does  not 
affect  one's  belief  in  the  mind  which  is 
revealed  by  that  small  part  of  nature 
called  a  human  body,  it  should  affect  one's 
belief  in  the  one  great  Mind  revealed  in 
every  part  of  nature  ?  Surely  there  is  no 
reason  for  this  unjust  discrimination  in 
favor  of  man. 

Should  it  be  said  that  this  view  would 
at  least  destroy  all  belief  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  as  influencing  the  order  of  events ; 
I  answer,  not  at  all,  unless  it  would  also 
destroy  the  possibility  of  believing  that 


$8          A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

one  may  ask  a  man  a  favor  and  have  him 
grant  it  because  asked.  If  the  latter  can 
be  looked  upon  as  natural,  so  can  the 
former.  And  in  just  the  same  sense.  In 
both  cases  it  is  simply  a  question  of  fact. 
Are  favors  granted  and  prayers  answered, 
or  are  they  not?  What  has  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  to  do  with  the  ques- 
tion? 


CHAPTER    VII. 

The  Eternity  of  Matter  and  the  Doctrine 
of  Evolution. 

JUST  as  in  the  last  chapter  it  did  not  fall 
within  my  purpose  to  decide  whether  the 
reign  of  law  is  universal  or  subject  to  ex- 
ceptions, so  in  the  present  chapter  it  does 
not  concern  me  to  decide  whether  matter 
and  force  are  eternal  or  not,  or  whether 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  to  be  accepted 
or  not.  I  merely  propose  to  consider 
briefly  how  it  would  affect  our  argument 
for  God  if  these  questions  were  to  be  de- 
cided in  the  affirmative.  This,  I  should 
think,  ought  to  be  of  interest  even  for 
those  who  have  little  fear  that  the  final 
answers  to  the  questions  will  be  in  the 
affirmative.  The  White  Knight  had  a 
mouse-trap  fastened  to  his  saddle,  as  he 
believed  it  would  be  very  disagreeable  to 
have  mice  running  about  on  the  back  of 


ioo        A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

his  horse,  and  yet  he  freely  admitted  that 
it  was  highly  improbable  that  mice  should 
be  found  in  that  peculiar  situation.  It  was 
well,  he  thought,  to  be  quite  secure.  And 
since  the  beliefs  that  matter  and  force  are 
eternal  and  indestructible,  and  that  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  is  to  be  accepted  as 
true,  are  sufficiently  common  beliefs  in 
our  day,  and  many  men  believe  that  they 
are  gradually  collecting  evidence  which 
will  prove  these  beliefs  well  grounded,  it 
would  certainly  be  more  agreeable  for  the 
man  who  is  watching  the  efforts  to  collect 
such  evidence  to  feel  sure  that,  whatever 
the  event,  it  will  not  rob  him  of  God,  than 
to  fear  that  his  belief  can  stand  only  in 
case  these  investigators  fail  to  establish 
theirs.  If  he  sees  that  the  argument  for 
God  remains  whether  these  questions  are 
answered  in  the  one  way  or  the  other,  or 
remain  unanswered,  he  is  not  tempted  to 
look  with  sourness  on  sincere  efforts  to 
increase  human  knowledge,  and  he  can 
await  with  patience  and  an  open  mind  the 


The  Eternity  of  Matter.  101 

results  of  an  honest  inquiry.  I  shall  try 
in  a  very  few  words  to  show  that  the  solu- 
tion of  these  problems,  most  interesting  in 
themselves,  is  in  no  way  of  vital  impor- 
tance to  the  argument  for  God. 

Stated  plainly,  the  doctrine  of  the  eter- 
nity of  matter  and  force  means  simply  that 
the  system  of  things  of  which  we  are  a 
part  has  not  had  a  beginning  in  time,  but 
has  always  existed,  and  passed  through 
its  series  of  changes  according  to  certain 
uniform  methods.  The  whole  amount  of 
matter  and  force  in  the  world  is  neither 
increased  nor  diminished,  but  only  under- 
goes certain  changes  in  form.  As  I  have 
already  discussed  the  question  whether 
the  uniformity  and  regularity  of  nature's 
methods  can  affect  the  argument  for  God, 
it  remains  only  to  inquire  whether  that 
argument  can  be  affected  by  the  denial  of  a 
beginning  to  this  series  of  natural  changes. 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  if  a  man's  argu- 
ment for  God  can  find  Him  only  as  a  re- 
sult of  a  regress  from  effect  to  cause,  and 

9* 


IO2        A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

from  that  to  its  cause,  and  so  on  up  to  the 
cause  which  limits  the  whole  series, — that 
is,  only  by  going  back  to  the  creation  of 
things, — it  is  evident  that,  if  this  is  his 
only  way  of  arriving  at  God,  in  the  denial 
of  a  beginning  of  things  he  loses  his  God. 
And  since  the  deist,  as  I  have  shown,  tries 
to  find  God  in  just  this  way,  he  cannot 
hold  to  the  eternity  of  the  world  and  go 
on  believing  in  God  too. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  one  finds  God 
in  the  world  here  and  now,  as  does  the 
theist,  and  does  not  think  it  necessary  to 
go  back  to  the  past  for  evidence  of  his 
existence,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the 
doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  the  world  can 
affect  his  belief.  If  the  system  of  things 
reveals  God  now  and  always,  the  answer 
to  the  question  how  long  the  world  has 
existed  will  also  be  the  answer  to  the 
question  how  long  God  has  been  revealed 
in  the  world,  but  it  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  question  whether  He  is  re- 
vealed there  or  not.  I  ask  you  again  to 


The  Eternity  of  Matter.  zoj 

reason  about  this  great  Mind  with  the 
common  sense  and  common  justice  that 
you  use  in  reasoning  about  men's  minds. 
Suppose  we  find  in  a  man's  walk  and 
conversation  evidences  of  thought  and  in- 
telligence. Would  our  discovery  of  the 
fact  that  there  had  been  indications  of 
thought  in  him  for  a  long  time  in  the 
past  make  him  seem  less  rational  to  us  in 
the  present  ?  We  can  conceive,  though  of 
course  we  cannot  believe,  that  he  did  not 
begin  to  reveal  mind  at  a  certain  definite 
time,  but  always  existed  much  as  he  does 
now.  Would  that  at  all  affect  the  question 
whether  his  mind  is  revealed  ?  Would 
we  not,  if  we  came  to  such  a  belief  con- 
cerning him,  simply  add  to  our  present 
opinion  that  his  mind  is  revealed,  the 
opinion  that  it  always  has  been  revealed? 
And  if  the  world  has  always  existed,  and 
has  always  been  full  of  evidences  of  reason, 
does  this  not  simply  mean  that  there  has 
always  been  a  revelation  of  God,  and  that 
it  has  not  merely  dated  from  a  certain 


104.        A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

time  in  the  past?  If  I  insist  that  a  mind 
exists,  and  point  in  proof  to  plain  indica- 
tions of  it,  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as 
a  refutation  of  my  position  to  maintain 
that  the  series  of  indications  is  a  much 
longer  one  than  I  had  supposed.  We 
have  in  our  books  on  Logic  a  pet  name 
for  refutations  of  this  blundering  nature. 
And  now  to  turn  to  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  and  its  significance  for  theism. 
It  is  well  to  remember  that  evolution 
means  simply  an  unfolding.  It  is  the 
doctrine  that  what  is  has  succeeded  what 
was  according  to  certain  uniform  methods. 
It  does  not  imply  that  the  later  and  higher 
has  been  in  the  earlier  and  lower  in  any 
strict  sense  of  the  word  in;  nor  does  it 
imply  that  the  high  is  not  high,  because 
it  has  been  preceded  by  the  lower.  We 
all  accept  the  fact  that  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
began  life  as  an  almost  bodiless,  and 
certainly  almost  mindless,  human  infant. 
Our  knowledge  of  what  he  was  once 
does  not  diminish  our  respect  for  what 


The  Eternity  of  Matter.  105 

he  became  later.  And  the  theory  that 
the  present  condition  of  things  has  suc- 
ceeded the  past  according  to  uniform  law 
should  not  in  itself  lessen  our  apprecia- 
tion of  what  the  world  is  now  or  of  what 
it  has  been.  The  world  is  what  it  is, 
and  the  evolution  question  is  but  one  of 
method :  How  did  the  world  get  to  be 
what  it  is? 

But  whether  there  has  been  a  gradual 
unfolding  of  the  system  of  nature  accord- 
ing to  uniform  methods,  or  whether  there 
have  been  breaks  in  its  history,  does  not 
the  argument  for  God  stand  just  the 
same?  If  the  evolutionist  shows  that 
things  are  brought  about  with  regularity 
and  by  means  nicely  adjusted  to  attain 
their  ends,  does  this  prove  that  nature  no 
longer  reveals  a  mind?  does  it  make  things 
look  irrational  ?  The  question,  you  see, 
is  after  all  one  that  has  been  answered 
already  in  the  decision  that  constancy  and 
uniformity  in  actions  do  not  prevent  their 
being  a  revelation  of  mind.  If  the  world 


106        A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

reveals  reason  and  the  unfolding  of  nature 
seems  according  to  plan,  then  the  fact  that 
we  can  observe  uniformities  and  discover 
laws  proves  only  that  God  is  not  revealed 
as  arbitrary.  It  cannot  prove  that  He  is 
not  revealed  at  all. 

There  is,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  only  one 
way  in  which  the  student  of  natural  sci- 
ence may  refute  our  argument  for  God. 
If  he  ever  succeeds  in  proving  that  nature 
is  irrational,  and  that  things  do  not  reveal 
mind,  he  will  have  answered  the  argument. 
Whatever  else  he  may  succeed  in  proving, 
unless  he  establish  this,  he  leaves  the  argu- 
ment untouched. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

Conclusion. 

IN  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  tried  to 
make  clear  that  the  argument  for  God  is 
simply  the  natural  argument  for  a  mind 
revealed  ii\  the  system  of  things,  and  I 
have  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  this  argu- 
ment is  not  to  be  regarded  as  subject  to 
objections  which  may  not  be  urged  with 
equal  force  against  the  arguments  for  other 
minds.  Throughout  I  have  insisted  upon 
the  necessity  of  keeping  in  mind  the  anal- 
ogy between  the  argument  for  God  and 
the  reasoning  which  convinces  us  of  the 
existence  of  minds  in  other  men.  In  the 
light  of  this  analogy,  objections  to  the 
argument  from  the  reign  of  natural  law, 
from  the  eternity  of  the  world,  and  from 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  have  been  seen 
to  be  quite  aside  from  the  point  at  issue. 

And  it  will  be  well  to  remember  that  we 


io8        A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

may  very  possibly  get  help  in  any  new 
difficulties  which  may  meet  us  in  reflecting 
upon  the  idea  of  God,  if  we  will  adhere 
closely  to  this  thought.  If,  for  example, 
we  come  upon  some  new  problem  which 
we  cannot  solve,  and  which  throws  us  into 
confusion,  it  will  be  well  to  ask  ourselves 
whether  a  similar  difficulty  does  not  meet 
us  when  we  think  about  the  revelation  of 
any  mind  to  any  other.  If  it  does,  and  if, 
nevertheless,  we  feel  justified  in  going  on 
believing  in  other  men's  minds,  we  should 
go  on  believing  in  God.  This  looking  for 
the  difficulty  in  the  case  of  human  minds 
may  not  solve  the  problem,  but  it  will  at 
least  show  us  that  it  is  a  much  broader  one 
than  we  had  thought,  and  it  may  strongly 
incline  us  not  to  believe  it  incapable  of 
solution. 

I  will  show  what  I  mean  by  taking  an 
instance.  You  ask  me:  Where  is  this 
God  of  whom  we  have  been  talking  all 
along?  I  answer:  I  will  try  to  tell  you, 
just  as  soon  as  you  have  told  me  where  I 


Conclusion.  /op 

will  find  the  mind — not  the  body,  but  the 
mind — of  another  man.  Difficulties  which 
apply  equally  to  every  case  in  which  one 
mind  is  revealed  to  another  cannot  be 
regarded  as  peculiarly  objections  to  the 
argument  for  God. 

Now  that  my  argument  is  finished,  I 
would  say  that  all  through  this  little  book 
I  have  used  words  in  their  usual  senses, 
and  have  remained  upon  what  has  been 
called  the  ground  of  the  common  un- 
derstanding. I  have  made  use  of  such 
phrases  as  "  the  world  without  us,"  "  cause 
and  effect,"  "  revealed  in  nature,"  "  other 
minds,"  and  many  more,  without  discuss- 
ing them  more  than  was  necessary  to 
bring  you  to  see  the  force  of  my  argu- 
ment. But  the  philosopher  delights  in  a 
microscopic  analysis  of  just  such  phrases. 
He  would  by  no  means  think  his  task 
finished  if  he  should  read  what  I  have 
written,  and  having  gotten  to  the  end, 
should  find  that  he  agreed  with  its  con- 
clusions. He  would  in  all  probability  set 


no         A  Plain  Argument  for  God. 

to  work  to  write  a  much  larger  book  than 
mine,  full  of  hair-splitting  distinctions  on 
the  subject  of  "self"  and  "not-self,"  and 
queries  as  to  how  one  mind  can  be  con- 
scious of  another,  or  whether  spirits  can 
be  said  to  be  anywhere  at  all.  He  would 
certainly  find  many  questions  to  ask,  and 
he  would  probably  have  to  leave  some  of 
them  unanswered. 

Into  this  debatable  land  it  has  been  no 
part  of  my  purpose  to  penetrate.  If  the 
reasoning  of  the  previous  chapters  is  good, 
a  further  analysis  may  serve  to  make  what 
is  dim  and  vague  in  it  clear  and  exact,  but 
it  cannot  do  away  with  any  part  of  it.  In 
this  reflection  those  who  are  not  philoso- 
phers may  rest  content.  The  interest  of 
most  men  in  the  argument  for  God  is  a 
practical  one  and  concerns  common  life. 
For  common  life,  the  ground  of  the  com- 
mon understanding,  if  it  is  solid  ground, 
is  good  enough. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

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193659 


